


Alitia: In Heavenly Light

by digitaldreams



Series: Alitia [3]
Category: No Fandom, Original Work
Genre: Alitia - Freeform, Cantors, Enchantresses, Gen, Heroes & Heroines, Mages, Sequel, Witches, Wizards, magic and lesbians but a third time, updated every tuesday
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-19 01:34:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29499624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/digitaldreams/pseuds/digitaldreams
Summary: With their first school year at Alitia finished, Luce and the Second Camaraderie divide for the upcoming summer break. When graduation arrives though, an unexpected foe attacks, causing the Millennium Six to once again fall into turmoil under the influence of this new threat. Sophia, the target of their newfound enemy, decides to flee for the sake of her companions, but the Second Camaraderie departs alongside her to ensure that no further disaster strikes. Cerise is forced into their ranks due to the sudden surge tied with the power of becoming a Sealed One, and she is left with no choice but to become part of their dynamic thanks to this position. Meanwhile, Cryon's mercenary band from Amity also leaves their home behind due to consistent issues involving the Church of Starlight attempting to force them to share information regarding the existence of the current bearers of Starlight. In a sudden and improvised trip across the universe, the two teams encounter danger, new horizons, and a plot from more than twenty years prior with the potential to change everything.
Relationships: Original Character(s)/Original Character(s)
Series: Alitia [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1659493
Kudos: 1





	1. I: Shared Radiance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luce and the Second Camaraderie adjust to their upcoming break. Meanwhile, Cryon attempts to evade the grasp of the Church of Starlight.

The sweet air of Millennia told of late springtime, and Luce Elenes brushed her short blue hair away from her face. She let out a sigh and shook her head when the breeze became particularly brutal, a harsh whisper against her ear. She hadn't seen nice weather of this nature in quite some time, and she had to confess that she was rather enjoying it.

About three weeks had passed since the end of the battle on Igni for the sake of freedom for leaths. Final exams had come and gone, leaving the Millennium Six to move on as if nothing had happened in the first place. The flow of time was strange to Luce, and she couldn't help but frown to herself as she considered all that had taken place recently.

Her arrival on Millennia had occurred roughly nine months prior, and an entire school year had flashed by within the blink of an eye. In the first four months or so, Luce and her companions had fought against the Possession Master, and the latter half of the year was spent concentrated on the fight against the leaders of Igni. Luce hadn't ever anticipated anything similar to this happening, and yet, she hadn't been given the chance to do anything to protest it. Luce couldn't fight back against the world itself, and she wasn't even going to bother trying. She knew where her place was, something that she had come to understand perfectly over the past few months for better or worse.

Luce was taking this as a chance to walk around the campus of Alitia. The Millennium Six schools had reached the most important part of the springtime days: graduation. After the end of a notably grueling school year, the time of graduation had arrived, and Luce had to say that it didn't even feel real. After so many months of just combat, everyone was being given the chance to act as regular teenagers for once. It was foreign, yes, but Luce wasn't going to fight back against the concept at all. It had been too long since she was allowed to enjoy the days of regular life. One could argue that she had never truly understood the definition of normality and how it influenced the world around her due to her past as a mercenary. 

The third-year students from all of the Millennium Six were set to graduate over the next few days. Luce had heard that the oldest students of the school were going to be proceeding with graduation as usual despite the many bumps along the road within the previous nine months. The Possession Master's issues combined with the war on Igni had offered many challenges between the start of the school year and graduation, but at least everything was about to draw to a close.

Luce knew that she had to start packing for her inevitable return to Amity. She was set to be going back home as soon as the graduation ceremony drew to a close. Luce had decided to stay behind for the ceremony because of the friends, or at the very least, acquaintances, who were graduating within the coming days. Mina Maestre and Chester and Myra Loveknot were among the students graduating, and Luce decided to at least stay back for the sake of her friends' siblings. Besides, she wanted the chance to bid her companions farewell before they parted ways for the coming three months of vacation.

Luce had to confess that she was looking forward to it. She wanted to go back and see how the mercenaries were doing. It had been too long since she had last crossed paths with Cryon, Lianna, and the other members of her team. She was certainly going to be able to show off her newfound skills, and Luce was excited to display how incredible she had become with a bow since her last time on Millennia. She had been training in the time since final exams ended to refine her power with a bow. It helped to take the edge off, and that was exactly what she needed since her time on Igni. 

Luce liked to believe that she was getting better as far as her issues with Igni and the ensuing war were concerned. She was desperate to think that, as a matter of fact. Luce closed her eyes and brushed her hair away from her face once again, showing the small scar on the side of her face to the rest of the world. Her cheek seemed to shudder at the touch of the cool breeze against her scar. She was moving past it thanks to the other girls. It had become weekly tradition for them to speak together about everything that had happened on Igni. They needed to be able to rely on one another for the sake of their own survival.

Luce shook her head and replaced her hair when she realized that it was time for her to go and focus on packing her things. She was meant to be returning to Amity within the next few days, and she was going to have to get everything together that she was going to potentially need back home on Amity for the following three months. She had held it off for long enough, and she was fully aware of her own bad habits regarding timing and packing.

In a way, Luce knew why she was taking so long to pull her things together. She was partially unsettled at the idea of being away from her friends after all that they had been through. She had to confess that she was incredibly reliant on her companions, and Luce didn't think that words would be able to describe how much she was going to miss them in the time that they were apart from one another. She hadn't even left Millennia behind--none of them had--but Luce still yearned for the times when they would be reunited following the conclusion of the break.

For the time being, Luce was going to at least try to enjoy her time on Amity. She was looking forward to seeing the mercenaries even if she was anxious to return to Millennia. It was a strange line that she walked, and Luce decided that it was fine enough if she stayed between the two. She didn't need to know how she felt in detail. The only thing that she needed to be positively aware of was the fact that the war was over. The battles of the Thanatos War and the Ignite Civil War were in the past, and that gave Luce the chance to breathe easily. That was what she required above all else, and relief was the sensation that she used as a lifeline as she thought of her next moves.

Luce forced herself back towards the school, her hair swishing back and forth with each step. Alitia Academy was bustling with activity in anticipation of the graduation while simultaneously being somewhat empty since a few of the underclassmen had already gone home. Luce's group was still there though, and that was what mattered most. They were together for a bit longer, and as far as Luce was concerned, that was all she needed.

Still, she couldn't help but wonder how life was for her fellow mercenaries. She was going to find out soon enough, but she wished the best for her father and all of the people working under his command regardless. She prayed that they hadn't gotten into too much trouble in her absence.

Luce opened the door to Alitia and walked inside. "I hope things are going well on Amity."

~~~~~

Things were not going well on Amity.

Cryon swore that everything Leora did at this point was just to annoy him. He muttered more than a few vulgar phrases under his breath as he made his way towards his room in the mercenary fort. He shoved one face into his hand and dragged his palm tiredly down his features. He was so close to punching the next person who even dared to ask him about Leora.

It had been three weeks since Leora's first appearance to the mercenaries, and Cryon had already heard more than enough about her. Even if it wasn't Leora herself appearing, it somebody that had been sent by her. Someone would somehow appear outside the doors of the fort to once again ask if Cryon knew anything about Dawn. How many different times would he have to say 'no' before Leora got it through her thick skull? He didn't know where Dawn was, and he hadn't been given any traces as to her location in more than fifteen years. 

"Again?" Reye questioned as Cryon passed through the main area of the fort. Even though it was the middle of the day, the lights were pressed low as a way of making it seem as if none of them were there. Cryon was willing to try anything to get Leora from stopping her constant pestering. It had passed the line of annoying a long time ago, and the next time that she saw her face, he was going to draw his sword first and ask questions later.

Cryon sighed as he leaned up against the doorframe. Reye had her legs kicked up on the couch as she flicked through a news magazine. Rie was beside her, one head leaning up against the nearby cushion as she tried to banish the opening traces of a headache. Lianna was reading through a book that seemed to be almost as thick as Cryon's head, and he wondered how she had the capacity to stare at such tiny text for so long. 

"Of course," Cryon replied simply, pinching at the bridge of his nose to try and keep himself from getting a migraine. Rie had taken over for his duties of opening the door to see if it was an actual client or another one of Leora's lackeys coming to ask them the same damn questions. It must have happened at least three times a day, and just after lunch, they were already up to four encounters. It was why she was struggling to get over a headache, and it was for the same reason that Cryon was on the verge of slamming his face into a pillow and screaming until the bone-deep irritation went away.

"They're starting to get on my damn nerves," Lewith declared as they came up behind Cryon, their bow curled tightly in their grasp. They stretched their arms above their head before allowing their hands to flop back down to their sides. "I'm tired of it. When is she going to learn that we don't know anything?"

"She never will," Cryon snorted. He wanted to say more, but he held himself back. That would involve talking about Dawn, and that was the last thing he wanted to do when he was already in a bad mood. Thinking about her was more than enough to upset Cryon on his best of days, and he didn't want to test his luck on a day when Leora was already bothering him as much as she was.

Leora was, to put it quite simply, the reason for all of this. Cryon had heard more than a few horror stories about how unpleasant she was, and he was fully aware of how true they were after speaking with her just a few times. Their first encounter had been tense and unsettling with how intently she watched him, almost as if she feared that he was a thief about to run off with her most beautiful dragon. In a way, that was exactly what he was in her eyes, and Cryon had long since given up on trying to change her mind. Leora was stubborn if nothing else, and if he hadn't been able to change her opinion in the past, then he wasn't going to be able to do it from then on. Once Leora got an idea in her head, nobody could hope to keep her from following through on it, true or otherwise.

"What are we even going to do?" Rie questioned, her voice far less noisy than Cryon was used to. Her words were so calm and demure that it bothered him. He was used to seeing more of her open and energetic side, but all of the constant irritation from Leora had certainly influenced her in a way that could only be described as negative.

"We haven't gotten a single job in weeks. If you ask me, I would say that it has something to do with her," Lianna commented. "I'm not trying to assume the worst of her or anything, but there could be a chance that she's attempting to drive away our clients. Imagine if she was truly trying to keep us from getting away from her interrogations."

Cryon snorted. "She would," he said, not wanting for bluntness in his brief response. "She thinks that I'm a liar for not telling her about Luce's existence. Sorry for not mentioning that we had a daughter when I didn't think that was possible. Sorry for not wanting her to be involved with the church. Sorry for wanting to protect my only child from one of the most frustrating people to ever exist on Starlight's damn planet."

By this point, it had become common knowledge that Dawn was Luce's mother, and Cryon wasn't even bothering to hide it. Even if it hadn't been well-known before then, Leora's consistent persistence was more than enough to hammer the message home. The mercenaries as a whole were starting to suffer from immense agitation due to her actions, and Cryon couldn't blame them in the slightest. He repeated endless threats every time that he imagined her sickeningly sweet smile.

"No offense, but I don't know how anyone can believe in the Church of Starlight if someone like that is the leader," Reye commented, not bothering to look up as she flipped to the next page of her magazine.

"Full offense," Cryon corrected a moment later. He heard the sound of a knock echoing throughout the building once again, and his headache immediately began to pound with a newfound sense of ferocity. He groaned loudly and resisted the urge to slam his fist into the nearest solid object. He had never suffered from anger issues, but Leora was something special. She had always brought out the worst in him, but Cryon somehow doubted that punching a stone wall was going to help.

"I've got it," came the cry of Sinin from elsewhere in the fort. O'Rourke came into view behind him, and he settled down on an old chair with his head in his hands. Cryon could tell that he was nursing the start of a headache as well. Despite his openly pleasant demeanor, Cryon could see the way that Sinin's lips moved with curses against the Church of Starlight and all its followers. Leora had accomplished a great feat by getting someone like Sinin, who rarely ever thought ill of others, to swear so vigorously.

"Five times today," Cryon sighed. "Five times too damn many."

~~~~~

Back in the dorm room of the Second Camaraderie, Luce couldn't help but notice how oddly empty the space looked. She had gotten used to seeing everything filled with life and decorations to fit their varying personalities, and noticing that all of the miscellaneous items had been taken away and placed in bags or boxes bothered her. She knew that they would be back soon enough, but it was still unfortunate to Luce that so much had been done to undo their room in the first place. The other girls were still undoing all of the decorations in the room to take things back home with them, but Luce barely seemed to notice them

"We're going to be back soon enough, and then we'll be able to put everything back to how it was," Helena pointed out when she noticed that Luce was taking a bit too long to stare at the blank walls of their room. "The cycle of rooms is going to keep us here for quite some time, so we're going to see this place again."

Luce nodded to herself. Helena was right. At Alitia, the three floors were dedicated to different years of students. As one class grew older, they remained on the same floor so that their rooms were always the same. When they graduated, that floor was moved into circulation once again for the newest group of incoming students. They would be returning to the room soon enough, and while Luce knew this, she couldn't help but find it to be strangely tragic at the same time.

Sylvia let out a sigh as she unceremoniously collapsed onto the nearby couch. She yawned and leaned her head against the backrest of the cushions. "Phew... I'm so happy that the exam season is over. I'm tired of having to put up with tests and everything involved with them," she confessed. "I don't know if I want to go home exactly, but I'm happy that I don't need to put up with that stuff anymore."

"You and me both," Carys agreed as she set her primary bag down beside the couch. She took a seat next to Sylvia a moment later. "I hate all of the stupid tests that come with this time of year. They're just frustrating. I want to rest for a while after having to deal with that for so long."

"Arguably, the exams were the least of our tests this year," S.M. snorted. She pulled a bag over her shoulder to test its weight before setting it back down a moment later. Her other arm curled around her waist, touching at the skin on the side of her torso. Luce knew the place that she was eyeing without even needing to ask. 

It was clear as could be that S.M.'s attention was on the spot where her Sealing mark could be seen. It had been a few months since both S.M. and Carys became the first of the Sealed Ones, but it didn't seem as if either one of them had truly gotten used to it. S.M. always seemed to be watching the place where her marking had appeared, and even if it wasn't exposed to the naked eye due to masking magic, she observed the region anyways.

On the subject of Sealed Ones, that brought up another matter that Luce wasn't sure of her answer to. Cerise hadn't been around in quite some time, seemingly caught up with other matters related to the restoration of Igni and her initial encounter with the royals of N-Yx. Luce wasn't asking any in-depth questions on the matter. She simply didn't see much of a point in it. After all, it wasn't as if it was any of her business, and Luce wasn't about to try to learn more about somebody who she barely knew.

It was only a matter of time before Luce was forced to learn more about Cerise though. The Blend had been named as the Sealed One of Aries three weeks prior, an event that simply refused to leave Luce's mind regardless of how much she tried to distract herself. Cerise had been one of the last people that she suspected to end up as one of the Sealed Ones, and it meant that they were going to become allies on a regular basis from that point forwards. Granted, it was going to be hard to get close to Cerise as long as she was away working on other business, but Luce was positive that they were going to see each other once again. It was only a matter of time before destiny shoved them back together. 

Luce forced herself to stop thinking about the Sealed Ones soon afterwards, and she glanced over the room to see that there were only seven of them in the room. She cursed herself for not noticing sooner, and Luce glanced up to figure out who was missing. It only took a moment for her to determine who among them was gone. "Where's Sophia?" she questioned. 

"She's still in our room," Tanith explained. She had taken to squeezing a stress ball with as much force as she could manage, and Luce could tell that it was her way of passing time. It wasn't as if Tanith had to worry about packing for a trip elsewhere. Tanith lived on Millennia with the headmistress of Alitia, so she didn't have any other places to be. Tanith had been helping out the other members of their group with packing up until a few moments prior, and Luce could tell that she was still desperate to do something with her hands even when her aid was no longer needed.

Luce cast a brief glance over in the direction of the room that Tanith shared with Sophia. The light was on inside, and Luce could see the shadows shifting in the crack underneath the door. It looked as if Sophia was pacing. Luce couldn't hear anything from the room, though she supposed that was more because of the general noise of the main area of their apartment.

Iris pulled something out of her bag and pressed it against an empty shelf. Luce realized a moment later that it was a speaker, and Iris began to connect her phone to the device soon afterwards. "It's too quiet in here," Iris murmured to herself. A few seconds later, a soft song began to play throughout the room, and Luce sighed in response. Iris had nice tastes in music.

"Graduation is in a week, but it seems like everyone is desperate to get out of this place," S.M. commented next as she pulled herself away from focusing on the place where her marking normally could be seen. "I can't say that I blame them. The past year has had more than a few unfortunate memories for all of us."

Luce resisted the urge to say that unfortunate was an understatement. Within the span of nine months, they had all been pulled into two wars. The students of the Millennium Six were often touted as the ones who would create the future itself, and while Luce appreciated the honor, there was only so much pressure that she wanted to put up with at any given moment. The past nine months had changed her life in more ways than she could ever hope to count.

It was hard to believe that she had been a simple mercenary a mere year prior. As soon as she set foot on Millennia, everything was destined to change, and Luce didn't know if she would ever be able to return to regular life again. She was a hero of war whether she chose to openly accept it or not, and she had become someone that many others admired. At such a young age, Luce had changed the world, and she knew that history was going to remember her name for better or worse.

"The third-year students must be particularly upset about how all of this went," Tanith commented sympathetically. "This was meant to be their final year of school, and you would expect them to want to enjoy it as much as possible. Instead, they were dragged into two wars and forced to fight for their lives on too many occasions.... It was overwhelming as a freshman, but as a senior, I would probably be more upset about it, you know?"

"Mina isn't all that mad about it, at the very least. She has other things to think about right now," S.M. sighed. "After graduation, Kanoa is taking her back to Rivergold so that they can see Kanoa's parents. Mina is going to have to talk to our parents soon enough too. You have no idea how complicated everything has gotten in the past year. I was disowned and then taken in once again after we toppled an oppressive government... Ugh, I'm going to need some serious therapy for this crap."

"You can say that again," Sylvia agreed. "I'm happy that my family is free of the Thanatos Curse, but I really wish that we didn't have to go through a war to get rid of it. Then again, I suppose that there's nothing we could have really done about it. Our enemies made their choice, and given that I got my brother and sister back, I suppose that it was ultimately a net positive. War is still obnoxious though."

"If you had told me a year ago that I was going to be part of two wars and then get power from the gods, I don't think I would have believed you," Carys proclaimed. "Times sure have been busy, hm?"

S.M. let out a snort and rolled her eyes. "You might not have believed the war part, but you would have said that you deserve power from the gods and then some. We know how you work, Carys. Don't lie to us," she pointed out. 

Carys' expression slipped into something almost bitter, but Luce could tell that it was playful when Helena burst into laughter a moment later. "You're hilarious," Carys commented in response, her voice even as could be. S.M. snickered in response, and Carys rolled her eyes with a dramatic sigh to show what she thought of such a slight.

"Sophia has been acting a bit strange as of late though, wouldn't you say?" Iris commented as she looked over in the direction of the one shut door in the area. The other doors had been left open with the rooms unoccupied, but Sophia had seemingly been in there for quite some time. Luce didn't think that Sophia had been inside when she first left to go on her daily walk around campus, but it was still unsettling to her that Sophia was keeping herself away from the rest of the world in such a way.

Tanith nodded. "She's been on the phone a lot lately. She used to be fine with letting calls ring without being picked up, but she's been a lot more careful about picking up the phone in the past few weeks," she agreed. "Ever since we ended the war with Igni, this has been an issue. She took that call during the party at the conclusion of the war, and everything has been a disaster since then."

"I wonder what's going on," Luce murmured. She had to confess that she had noticed Sophia's odd behavior as well, but she had chosen not to comment on it primarily because it was Sophia who was acting so strangely. Sophia had always been an introvert who desperately needed her quiet time. Recovering from the war couldn't have been easy for her, especially given that she hadn't been on the front lines of the battle against the Possession Master earlier in the school year. Luce had assumed that was the culprit for quite some time, prompting her to give the matter some distance.

But the longer that she considered it, the more Luce realized that perhaps she was simply deceiving herself by thinking of Sophia's behavior in such a way. Sophia would have mentioned it if there was something going on involving the war. They had all been open with their issues in the aftermath of the war on Igni primarily because Luce didn't want them to repeat her mistakes of the past. She was fully aware of how she had forced herself to be a perfect soldier because of the war, and the last thing she wanted was for that to repeat with any of her companions. The meetings had been her idea in the first place as a result. 

"We'll ask her about it as soon as we get the chance," Helena said. The rest of the group nodded their agreement, and Luce snapped out of her trance. She could see the shadows shifting underneath Sophia and Tanith's shared bedroom door, and Luce did her best to keep from wincing. She was almost positive that Sophia was pacing on the other side of the barrier, and Luce was desperate to hear about what was going on in the other girl's head. She didn't consider herself a nosey person, but there were some matters that simply couldn't be left alone as far as Luce was concerned.

For the time being, Luce knew that she had to get focused on packing up her things for the coming move back to Amity. She had held it off for long enough as far as she was concerned, and Luce knew that standing around in the main area of their apartment wasn't going to help her get her work done. She was an efficient person, and she knew what she had to get done, but Luce wouldn't make any progress if she continued lingering in the shared space of their dorm.

Luce walked into her room and flicked the light on, keeping the door open so that her companions would still be able to talk to her. She opened the window and allowed the breeze to drift through, and a sigh left her lips. Part of her wished that she would be able to bring both the mercenaries and her companions from Alitia with her wherever she next went, but Luce knew better than to be so selfish when they all had other places to be. Besides, there was nobody saying that they wouldn't be able to see one another at all after summer began.

Luce began to pull her largest items together into a bag, and she glanced out at the campus of Alitia. Summer had arrived, and with it, a new hope had come. Luce could feel it in the air itself, and she found herself wanting to cling to the sensation for as long as possible. Everything seemed as if it was going to be alright, and Luce had to confess that the mere concept was nothing short of splendid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New book! Yay!
> 
> -Digital


	2. II: Turbulence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The day of the graduation ceremony arrives, bringing with it unexpected complications.

Luce winced as a brush was pulled through her hair, and she glanced over her shoulder with something between confusion and enmity stirring in her eyes. "Carys, is this really necessary?" she asked. Another hiss broke free of her lips when Carys brought the brush down a second time, and Luce suddenly wanted to get up and walk away more than anything else in the world.

"Yes," Carys responded without an ounce of hesitation. She set her brush down and continued to pull Luce's hair away from her face before grabbing a small ponytail holder and starting to tie the hair together. "You'll look nice this way. Besides, we have to look at least somewhat decent for the graduation ceremony. Everyone has expectations, and even if the students don't mind it, their parents most certainly will."

Luce let out a sigh and waited as Carys continued to work. It was only the two of them and Helena in their dorm room at the moment since everyone else had already headed off to the graduation ceremony being held at Sacred Heart for all of the graduating students of the Millennium Six. Sylvia and S.M. were with their siblings while Iris and Tanith decided to help out with setting everything up. Sophia was a mystery, but Luce assumed that she was able to handle herself. Sophia's strange behavior hadn't gotten any better, but she trusted that her friend would be able to keep herself out of trouble. It was only a matter of time before everyone cornered her and got the truth out of her, so as far as Luce was concerned, Sophia deserved to enjoy her final few moments of freedom before the rest of the group figured out what was going on in full detail.

Carys gasped excitedly and clapped her hands together after her handiwork had been finished. She snapped her fingers, and a small plate of ice appeared before Luce. It looked like an elaborate mirror made purely out of freezing crystals, and Luce wasn't at all surprised when she grabbed the mirror from thin air and felt the palms of her hands immediately protest from the cold.

However, the one thing that Luce wasn't protesting was the way that Carys had done her hair. Luce hadn't trimmed her hair in quite a while, and Carys had taken full advantage of that. Luce's hair, while long for her standards, was only barely able to be tied into a small bun at the base of her neck. The bun was messy, but it certainly fit with Luce's sense of style. Besides, Carys could make even a messy bun seem like the pinnacle of grace, something that Luce didn't think anybody else alive would be able to pull off.

"Wow," was all Luce could make herself say as she examined her hair from every angle. She didn't have anything to say about it aside from that, though she did have one complaint. Her hair wasn't able to rest over her eye the way that it usually did, leaving her cheek fully exposed to the rest of the world. That wouldn't be an issue for most people, but given that Luce had a scar across her cheek that had been there throughout much of her life, she was a tad particular about how she styled her hair. The last thing she wanted was to get weird looks at a formal outing such as the Millennium Six's graduation ceremony.

Luckily for Luce, Carys was already two steps ahead of her, and she turned the girl around in the swivel chair that they had pulled out of Tanith and Sophia's room. Carys began to examine Luce's face in more detail before she cast a small spell to cover up the scar. Luce's marking of Starlight, something that had once been hidden from her and the rest of the world, was left on full display. Carys smiled to herself after she had finished. "There you are. Look at me, managing to make something stylish out of you," Carys commented with a grin. "You didn't have anything even resembling formal clothing when you came here, but with a bit of work, I did something spectacular. Who would have guessed it?"

Luce got to her feet when she realized that Carys was finished with her, and she walked into their bathroom before looking at herself in full. She was wearing a white blazer over a blue shirt that complimented her eyes and hair perfectly. She had also taken to wearing white leggings with black lace-up boots, and turquoise fingerless gloves were on her hands. It was an outfit that had been pulled together from various items that both Luce and Helena owned, and Luce had to confess that while she was uncertain about it at first, Carys truly had managed to make it all look wonderful.

"We should probably get going soon," Helena commented as she came out of the room that she had shared with Luce the past nine months. She was wearing a red dress with tints of purple when the light shined on it just right. A pink flower sat in her hair, and Luce had to say that Helena looked absolutely radiant when her hair was left down in its natural light curls. Helena was wearing flats to complete the look, proof that she was nowhere near as savvy at walking in heels as her sister was.

"You're right," Carys agreed as she started to move towards the door. Carys shone like a diamond among the three of them with her blonde and brown hair in perfect curls that cascaded down her back in a way that Luce could only describe as heavenly. She was wearing a pale blue dress that almost appeared to be made of snow, and a white wrap made of transparent white fabric could be seen weaving around her shoulders. She finished the look with heels of a bold black color that compensated for her lack of verticality. Even if Carys had grown significantly in the past year, she was still far from being the tallest member of their group, especially when compared to Helena and Luce.

"I hope that this goes well," Helena confessed as she smoothed out the final wrinkles in her dress. "I mean, there's a lot of pressure on today. I heard from S.M. that her parents are coming to see Mina graduate. Sylvia's father isn't showing up. You can imagine how tense that must be for both of them."

Luce shook her head, finding it strange when her bun responded accordingly. It was going to take some time to get used to that, but her woes over her hair were minimal when compared to the issues S.M. and Sylvia were enduring. S.M.'s parents, after being essentially completely absent from their daughters' lives for ages, had decided to move away from their past to attend the graduation ceremony for the third-year students since Mina was graduating. Sylvia's father was a complicated matter given that he was both royalty and known for being distant, and while Luce was disappointed that he hadn't decided to come to support his child, she knew that she had to continue supporting Sylvia through it all. That was what she was there for, after all. Everyone needed one another in the aftermath of the war on Igni, and for a few brief moments, they were being given the chance to act as regular teenagers rather than soldiers. The last thing Luce wanted was for anything to spoil something so incredible and rare.

"Yeah, you can say that again," Carys snorted. "Our mother isn't exactly happy with me at the moment, but I like to think that our situation would still be less complicated than all of that. I don't know how S.M. and Mina are even forgiving their parents. Involved with Surion or not, it seems like a really crappy thing to do to just abandon your children like that, you know?"

Luce nodded, not wanting to be outright judgemental but still agreeing with Carys' conclusions. "Sylvia's father is busy with ruling over their planet, so that's likely the reason why he isn't going to be coming. Sylvia told me that her relationship with her father is still strained even though Iago has been taken care of, and I can't say that I'm surprised. As far as I'm aware, he's been distant for as long as she can remember," she murmured.

"We'll just have to see how it all goes, and we'll be there for them in case they need it," Helena announced with a surprising amount of confidence. Luce smiled at Helena's outward boldness. A year ago, Helena wouldn't have been capable of such a display, and she had to admit that it was nicer to see than she would have ever said out loud.

"In all honesty, I'm also a bit worried about Sophia," Carys muttered when she was sure that nobody was around them to listen in. "She's been acting so weird as of late. I know that we've all got our own hobbies and that stuff, but this is just... I don't know. Something about it feels different, and I don't like it. You've noticed it too, right?"

"Yeah," Luce confirmed. The girls had left behind the school building by this point and were starting to walk towards Millennium City. When they left behind the city, they would be in the general area of Sacred Heart. It was a walk that they had come to know by heart, so none of them felt the need to comment on it.

"Something is definitely wrong, I agree," Helena nodded. "I wish I could tell you what it was though. She's been anxious and on edge for seemingly no reason. I mean, I understand that times are difficult, but something about this feels different, you know? It's hard to describe, but she's been like this ever since we started to celebrate the end of the war on Igni. She took one phone call, and everything has gone downhill."

"Seems like she's always on the phone, and when she isn't, she's so spaced out that it's almost impossible to talk to her," Luce said softly with a shake of her head. "I know that we're all going back home soon, but we should do what we can to get her to talk before we do split up. I think that we owe her that much. She's always been there for us, so it's time that we return the favor."

Neither one of the other girls objected, and Luce paused as the trio stopped at a crosswalk before continuing to move in the direction of Sacred Heart. Carys' heels made noisy clicking sounds as they navigated through the city.

"I guess that we'll just have to figure it out after today. Besides, we're supposed to be enjoying ourselves today," Carys pointed out. "Let's do what we can to have a nice time for the sake of those who are graduating. We don't want to add any other pieces of stress to Sylvia and S.M.'s loads unless we absolutely have to, so we'll wait until after the ceremony and then say something."

Luce nodded her silent agreement and turned her head up to the horizon. She could see the outline of Sacred Heart's tallest towers in the distance, and she pushed herself to continue walking in the right direction. Helena and Carys trailed after her, and while neither one of them said anything out loud, Luce knew exactly what they were thinking about. It was clear as could be. Luce just hoped that the graduation ceremony went off without a hitch to keep from adding too much stress to their lives. From there, all they had to do was force Sophia to start talking. It couldn't have been that hard to do, right?

~~~~~

Tanith sat down with a sigh as she raised one hand to rub at her eyes. She had been at Sacred Heart since before the sun came up to get ready for graduation, and she was nothing short of exhausted. Iris had decided to come along with her, and while Tanith appreciated the assistance, she didn't think that all of the help in the world would have been enough to keep her from completely losing it.

Tanith was no stranger to helping out with the graduation ceremonies with each passing year. Ever since she was taken in by Zylphia and Jin, it had become tradition for her to go to the corresponding school and do what she could to help out. Besides, it gave her another chance to see the teachers from the other schools. They all knew of her even if Tanith wasn't notably close with them, and that counted for something as far as Tanith was concerned.

But there was something more to it today. She didn't know how to describe it, but something felt off. The teachers of Sacred Heart were the busiest people on the campus since their school was hosting the graduation, but Tanith could tell that they were stressed about something that went deeper than just the graduation ceremony. Something deep in the pit of her stomach said that she was going to be seeing a lot more than she had anticipated, and no matter how much Tanith tried to ignore her instincts, she knew that they were right. Something was wrong, and it was only a matter of time before it all blew up in her face.

On the other hand though, maybe she was just being paranoid. Tanith hadn't been sleeping well for a long time, and it seemed as if she only ever rested for hours upon hours at a time when nobody was watching or not at all. Her own anxiety seemed to keep her awake late into the night, something that hadn't gotten any better since Sophia started taking so many phone calls. It wasn't uncommon for Sophia to be awake well after midnight on the phone with someone that Tanith didn't know. She had asked her roommate for details, but Sophia had always declined to answer with a delicate smile on her face that made Tanith feel oddly nauseous. She didn't like the idea of her close friend keeping so much from her. She could tell that something was going on, so why didn't Sophia just talk to her?

"You sure do seem stressed."

Tanith practically jumped out of her skin when she heard Iris' voice over her head. She glanced up to see that the redhead was looming over her with a light smile on her face, and Tanith forced herself to correct her posture as soon as she could. Her dress was already out of order, and Iris looked like the paragon of composure by comparison, her bronze suit shining in the morning sun. Tanith's teal dress normally puffed out around her thighs, but it was unforgivably flat thanks to all of her constant rushing from place to place. 

"I guess so," Tanith replied as she forced herself back into something resembling composure. Her cheeks had flushed bright pink at Iris' appearance, and Tanith suddenly felt herself overly aware of anyone else who might have been watching her. When she glanced around, Tanith was happy to see that there was nobody around to see her moment of relaxation when she should have been working more on the process of getting all the decorations in order for graduation. 

Iris took a seat beside Tanith after smoothing out her own clothing, and she flashed the girl a small smile. "I can only imagine that it's quite a bit of work to make sure that everything is functioning well for this," she remarked.

"I've been helping out with graduation ever since Zylphia took me in, but it seems different this year. I suppose that it's because of all the expectations that have come with the past few months," Tanith confessed. "Everyone is going to be looking for a break from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. I mean, things have been an absolute disaster for the past nine months, and if I was graduating today, I know that I would want everything to be perfect too."

"The parents are going to be the hard ones to impress. That's what I heard Anneliese and Nebula say, anyways. It's been a huge source of stress for Nebula's older brother, and things have only been harder for him and Headmistress Claudere since the Guardians left to return to Neo-Yen," Iris told her. "We'll have to do our best. From there, all we can do is see what happens. I think that this could be a great opportunity for us to show everyone how far we've come. I mean, look at us. We've survived two wars and an entire school year on top of that. If you want my opinion, that kind of resilience doesn't come around every day." She nudged Tanith playfully with her shoulder, and Tanith couldn't help but smile in return. She was beyond glad that Iris had offered to help her set up for graduation. It certainly made the whole ordeal far less daunting than it would have been otherwise. 

"We'll just have to do our best," Tanith announced as she forced herself to her feet. She hated the way that the world seemed to bend and sway with the action, and Tanith found herself being pulled back into her seat when Iris closed her fingers around Tanith's wrist. Much to her own surprise, Tanith didn't object to the action in the slightest, instead enjoying the reprieve of being off her feet for a few extra precious moments. Iris had likely noticed her uncertainty and was trying to do whatever she could to make it easier to deal with. 

"Think about it this way. As soon as everything has been wrapped up here, we're free to do as we please. I know that a lot of us are going home to spend time with our families because of how chaotic the past year has been, but we're still going to have time to be together and hang out. All we need to do is get through today," Iris reminded her. 

Tanith let out a nervous laugh. "You know, that sounds a lot like the mentality we've all been forced to have over the past year... Everything will be fine if we can just get through today. Everything will be fine if we can just get through this battle. Everything will be fine if we can just get through this war. Every single time, our demands grow taller and larger, but I guess that it's easier to endure a graduation than a third war in the span of a year," she commented. 

"That's the thing. After all that we've been through, this is nothing by comparison," Iris pointed out. "We've been through hell and back over the course of the past year, but we're still here, standing tall and proud as can be. This is nothing when you think about the war that Iago Thanatos started. Don't even get me started on the Alight Five and the subsequent fallout that came with Igni declaring war on us before we got involved with their civil war. A lot has happened, but we're still here, and I think that's one of the most incredible blessings that we could have gotten. We're going to be fine for one afternoon of formalities and fancy clothing."

Tanith glanced Iris up and down, once again admiring the girl's bronze outfit. "You know, you hardly seem to be at ease in a situation like this," she confessed. Even if Iris seemed relatively casual there as they sat and spoke with one another, there was an unspoken tension to her friend's shoulders that didn't go unnoticed by Tanith's attentive gaze. 

Iris shrugged. "I guess that I'm more at home in armor than a suit or fancy dress," she confessed. "It's always been that way. I was so sure that I was going to wind up as a knight for the Loduke royal family from a young age, so I didn't exactly have a need to get dressed in anything but that. Somehow, I feel as if the dress code here is different from swords and steel." She let out a small laugh before shaking her head. "We'll figure it out. That's what matters most."

"You're right," Tanith whispered. Despite her stress, Tanith couldn't help but think about how much she was going to miss this after everyone went their separate ways. She couldn't force them to stay behind on Millennia, especially when family ties held them elsewhere, but Tanith was going to miss seeing them on a daily basis. Even if they arranged times that they could hang out during, it wouldn't be the same as far as Tanith was concerned. She could only hope that the beauty of summer didn't do anything to dull the ties that their year of close connection had created.

Most of the time, Tanith was one of the only members of their group who stayed behind on Millennia over break. It was her home, so it was only natural that she declined to travel elsewhere. Luce, Iris, Helena, and Carys traditionally decided to go back home, but while Sylvia and S.M. had stayed behind in the past, Tanith somehow doubted that would be the case this time. Sylvia's siblings were free of the Thanatos Curse and had been for a while, giving her the ability to go back home if she so chose. S.M., on the other hand, was finally safe on Igni, and Tanith expected her to take advantage of it despite the strained relationship she had with her parents. That left only Sophia as part of the group that stayed on Millennia, but Tanith had no way of saying for sure what the nature enchantress was going to do. Sophia's odd behavior hadn't changed in weeks, and Tanith couldn't help but wonder if this was a sign that her friend was planning on returning home to Fortunia for the three months to come. 

"Hey! Over here!"

Tanith just about jumped out of her skin as she heard Iris cry out and wave one arm above her head. Tanith looked up to see that Iris was trying to get the attention of Anneliese and Nebula. Anneliese had decided to tie her hair back in a way that made it seem shorter than usual, and she wore elaborate yet neutral clothing that reminded Tanith of Anneliese's time as Rune during the first semester of the recent school year. Nebula, on the other hand, wore a deep purple dress that only made her eyes gleam more than usual, and the heels that she wore made her nearly tower over Tanith despite them being closer in height most of the time. Nebula had a gentle wrap around her shoulders and a black fan in one hand. Tanith could see that the material of the fan was a type of fabric found traditionally on Loduke, and she had seen it on Anneliese and Iris both more times than she could count. Tanith wondered distantly if perhaps the fan had been a gift from Anneliese to Nebula, but she chose to not ask about it, believing that perhaps it was a private matter that the girls wouldn't want to openly disclose. 

"Tanith, did you happen to fight with a tornado?" Anneliese questioned as she glanced over the other girl's appearance. Her eyes were wide with shock, and Tanith was left to wince and wonder if perhaps she looked worse than she had thought initially. 

"You're fine," Nebula assured Tanith when she saw the nervousness on her face. She began to comb her fingers mindlessly through Tanith's hair, letting out a small hiss when her nails accidentally caught on a tangle or two. "Perhaps the wind has been impacting you more than we thought."

"Sorry. My magic gets weird when my anxiety gets too bad," Tanith apologized. She hadn't even noticed it, but the wind of the area had likely started to cling to her thanks to how nervous she had been throughout the course of the day. Tanith's control over her magic had never been incredible, and her anxiety only ever made it worse. It was as if the power was always resting beneath the surface, waiting to explode at a moment's notice when even a minor inconvenience presented itself. 

"No need to apologize," Anneliese told her with a small laugh. "Everything is ready as far as I can tell... Still, I must say that everything has felt strangely tense today. Some of our professors have almost been angry throughout the course of the setup process."

"You noticed it too?" Tanith asked, looking up to Anneliese. Nebula forced her to look straight ahead a moment later so that she could continue combing out Tanith's wild tresses. Tanith followed her actions, wishing that she hadn't needed to be coddled because of her embarrassing behavior and rampant magic. 

Anneliese nodded. "I'm afraid so. It's almost as if everyone is upset with one another for no reason... Well, I would assume that there is a reason for it, but that doesn't make it any less upsetting. I believe that's why Headmistress Claudere has been so tense all day. Setting up the graduation isn't an easy task, but this is only making her more irritable than usual. I wonder if something could have happened among the teachers that we aren't aware of," she mused quietly. 

"We'll have to see what happens, I suppose," Tanith murmured, resisting the urge to shrug and ruin all of Nebula's hard work. She tried not to think about what could be going on between the teachers of Sacred Heart, instead allowing herself to stare straight ahead at whatever happened to pass through her line of sight. 

Much to Tanith's own surprise, a pair of familiar figures came into view. Tanith hadn't been anticipating to see December or Cerise on graduation day, but it appeared that their connection with Altina had dragged them back to Millennia yet again. They were speaking with a man that, while mostly unfamiliar to Tanith, had the same dark blue and purple hair that she was used to seeing on December and Altina. She had heard from Zylphia that the two women had a brother by the name of Salem, and it was easy enough to put the pieces together regarding this newcomer given the title. 

"I guess that times haven't been as busy on Igni as we thought," Iris commented, and Tanith realized that all of her friends were staring at the two women intently. Iris began to nervously fidget with the hem of her jacket, and Tanith bit down on her lip. She didn't need to be a genius to know exactly what Iris was thinking about. After all, the same thought process had passed through her mind as well. 

"It's still odd for me to think of Cerise as one of us," Anneliese confessed. "I mean, I know that she is because of what happened beneath the tunnels of the former capital, but... It's odd. We used to fight against one another... Though I suppose that you have all fought against me as well, so who am I to talk?"

Tanith sighed as Nebula finished combing through her hair. "I know," she whispered. As much as Tanith hated to admit it, she was a bit jealous of Cerise. It was an awful way for her to think, and she was fully aware of it, but Tanith wished that she had the benefits of being a Sealed One as well. It was an insecurity that had been silent when S.M. and Carys found their strength, but Cerise taking her place among their ranks had only caused Tanith's fears to explode outward in an aggravating fashion that was impossible for her to ignore. 

Tanith couldn't help but wonder when she was going to become a Sealed One, assuming that it happened at all. The idea somehow felt wrong to her, as if she knew that unlike her companions, she wasn't destined to fill out the group of twelve who sealed their convictions with the proxies of the divine. It was hard to describe, but Tanith knew that there was something holding her back. She would never dare breathe a word of this to anyone else, but the fear still pulled at her stomach in a frustrating fashion each time she was reminded of the blessings of power. 

"We'll figure it out," Iris suddenly declared. "We have to. Besides, there's still more than enough time for other members of our little team to join her, wouldn't you say? For all we know, the next Sealing is just around the bend. Imagine how great that's going to be."

Tanith nodded dully, hearing Iris' words but not fully processing them. She looked down to her hands before forcing herself to her feet. She began to smooth out her dress, realizing just how much the frilled layers had fallen out of order as she did so. No wonder Anneliese had been so concerned about her going three rounds against something turbulent. 

"I have to go and check on the other preparations," Tanith declared abruptly. She walked away as quickly as she could manage, leaving Iris, Anneliese, and Nebula stunned silent. None of them followed her, likely too confused to figure out what was bothering her. Tanith liked it better that way. She didn't want to involve her friends if she could avoid it. Somehow, that just felt like an extra handful of selfishness on top of everything else already swirling through her head. 

She could use the distraction. She had been looking for a break earlier, but all of a sudden, Tanith was looking for something to keep her from thinking about her moment of reprieve. Everything was going to be fine if she could just stop thinking. It would all work out fine. It just had to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story owns my entire brain honestly
> 
> -Digital


	3. III: Blood and Covenant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sylvia and S.M. struggle with their blood connections and the bonds they've formed in the past year.

Sylvia pressed her hands down against the skirt of her dress, watching carefully as the fabric bent under her influence before returning to its previously puffy state. The many layers of the skirt were a small comfort, in a way, giving Sylvia something else to focus on instead of her impending sense of doom. She adjusted the skirt once again a moment later, still not thinking that it looked right. 

"Sylvia, you're going to wear off the color of the fabric if you keep doing that," came a joking remark from Chester, forcing Sylvia to look up to see both him and Myra standing nearby. Both of them were dressed up to the highest of standards, and yet, they didn't seem anywhere near as anxious as Sylvia was. 

Myra shook her head as she approached Sylvia and took her sister's hands between her own. "Everything is going to be fine," she assured Sylvia carefully. When the younger girl looked up to meet Myra's eyes, she saw that the anxiety she was enduring was still very much so present in her sister's gaze. Myra was simply doing a better job of hiding it all, an effortless actress in every way that Sylvia was not. 

Sylvia forced herself to nod in response to her siblings' banter, unsure of what she was supposed to say in response. She didn't know how to tell them that she was worried about everything that had the potential to go wrong that day. Somehow, it just didn't feel right for her to dump all of that out onto Myra and Chester. They were just as stressed as she was if not more so, and Sylvia knew that she had to keep her composure. 

It wasn't going to be much longer before the two crossed paths with their father once again. Sylvia wasn't exactly looking forward to it, and while that was a terribly cruel thing for her to think, she couldn't bring herself to openly lie about it. She had seen her father a few times since the Thanatos War, and her siblings had finally been allowed to return home with the curse dispelled. Their father, Howard Loveknot, had been glad to see them and welcome all three of his children home once again, but Sylvia could tell that there was a lot hiding behind those haunted eyes that she had come to recognize from her one surviving parent. 

Sylvia couldn't exactly blame him. He had lost many people to the Thanatos Curse in the past, and he didn't seem to have fully processed that he had been given the chance to return to his previous life. He had selected the Dark practice to keep from completely crumbling under the influence of the curse, but in the end, that hadn't been enough. His wife had been taken from him and killed by the man he knew to be his enemy, and two of his three children were dragged away by Iago when he wasn't paying attention. Of course things were going to be awkward. 

For a long time, Sylvia hadn't been entirely comfortable around her father. It was simply part of the greater issue, if she was being honest. Her father had become unapproachable to her after Myra and Chester disappeared from their home planet. Not even the span of four and a half months could fully dispel the fears of the past, it seemed. 

"He's not going to react as strongly as you think, Sylvia," Myra assured her sister, and Sylvia nearly jumped out of her skin when Myra's hand came down onto her shoulder. "He just wants the best for all of us. He may have an interesting way of showing it, but this is just his way of telling us that he cares."

Sylvia nodded with a dull hum leaving her lips. She didn't want to make it seem as if her father was completely uncaring, but at the same time, she hated the idea of having to face him once again. After the Thanatos War, Sylvia had returned home, and the broken look on her father's face when he saw Myra and Chester again would haunt her for the rest of her life. She didn't know how she was meant to feel about everything that could have happened when Howard arrived. She just knew that it filled her with a sense of dread that she couldn't escape no matter how hard she tried.

In a way, it felt as if his grief had deprived him of the chance to get to know his daughter. Sylvia had tried so many times to close the gap between herself and her father, but she was never fully able to make it clear that she was still there even if everyone else was gone. It was almost as if Howard didn't hear her most days because of the depth of his grief and paranoia. Sylvia hadn't told him about anything that had taken place as of late. He still didn't know anything about her friends who had done so much to free Myra and Chester, and Howard was unaware that Sylvia and Luce had been together four almost five months. She didn't know how she was supposed to articulate such a truth when it felt as if Howard had been so distant from her for years up to that point. 

Chester suddenly nudged at Sylvia, and fear ran through her body as she forced herself to straighten out. She could see Howard's silhouette nearby, and Sylvia hated the way that her heart pounded a screaming pulse in her ears. She couldn't even hear herself think above the cacophony, and she detested it with every part of her being. Sylvia's fingers closed around the edge of her skirt, and it wasn't until after Myra gently pulled her grasp away that Sylvia realized just how tight her grip had been. 

"Father, it's great to see that you were able to make it," Chester declared, and Sylvia forced herself to focus on the sound of his words rather than the screaming terror inside. Chester's smile was bright, and Myra beamed from Sylvia's other side. She felt guilty for being unable to replicate their joy. 

Howard looked to his children with weary eyes that Sylvia could only describe as exhausting. Howard hadn't slept much, though she supposed that this was simply par for the course for him by this point. However, meeting his gaze seemed to pull away Sylvia's energy as well, and she was left desperate for her friends. It would be easier for her to drown herself in their shared presence than focusing on her father. Guilt followed that train of thought, and Sylvia tried to remember what it was like to be comfortable in Howard's presence even after so many years of discomfort. 

"The ceremony is set to be starting soon," Myra continued when Howard didn't respond. She and Chester were putting out so much effort that it made Sylvia feel bad by comparison. During the years where Myra and Chester were gone, forced under the influence of Iago Thanatos, Sylvia had watched their father come apart. The damage had begun when their mother was abducted and subsequently killed, but the loss of Myra and Chester completely shattered him. In a way, Sylvia wondered if perhaps he had forgotten about her along the way. She had been needing support more desperately than ever before, on the cusp of a choice that would change her life forever, but all he did was focus on his own tempestuous emotions. 

Howard nodded carefully. "Of course," he murmured. Myra and Chester seemed to have expected the lack of a formal greeting, and they carefully led Howard away towards the stands that had been set up outside Sacred Heart. It took Sylvia a few moments too long to snap out of her trance and follow them. 

Sylvia's eyes shifted over the courtyard, and she let out a gasp when she caught sight of the front gates. She realized that Luce had arrived with Helena and Carys. Sylvia desperately wished to dash towards them, but since her other obligations held her tied to her father's side, she simply waved from afar. Luce returned the gesture, and Sylvia's chest filled with something that felt an awful lot like love. The subsequent guilt nearly crushed her when she realized that she was more comfortable with Luce, someone she hadn't even known for a year, than her own father. Was she an awful person for wanting to be with Luce instead? 

She forced herself to stop thinking about such dismal subjects as she sat down with Myra and Chester. Her father was positioned between her older siblings, and Sylvia was thankful that Myra was acting as a buffer between them. Sylvia forced herself to focus on the conversation between the other members of her family, but all the while, she found herself yearning for the other family that she had discovered during the time when her father had almost forgotten about her in his pursuit of grief. 

~~~~~

S.M. had never been too particularly fond of fancy events, and such a fact held true as she stood with Mina and Kanoa on the Sacred Heart campus. The two girls were smiling fondly to one another as they held hands, and S.M. focused on the place where their fingers connected instead of her own mounting hatred for the events of the day. 

It was only a matter of time before Frenz and Ethyn appeared. The agreement to allow them to come had not come easily to S.M. or Mina. Both of them understood what they wanted to try and do, but articulating it was more difficult than they had given it credit for initially. S.M. was going to do what she could to try and make things right between herself and her parents, but Mina was a bit more resistant to it. In fact, Mina was planning to go to Rivergold with Kanoa after graduation instead of returning to Igni. The plans had been made a while ago, and Mina refused to adjust them for her parents. 

Mina was many things, but stubborn was one of the words that stuck out most to S.M. when she thought of her sister. However, she knew that such stubbornness was born out of a protective nature that Mina had been forced to exercise when their parents failed to do the same. Mina had always been defensive over S.M., and when both of them were forced away from Igni by Surion, Mina had only been upset on her sister's behalf. Mina had seemingly always understood what her fate entailed, and when the time came for them to set out, Mina was only mad because she wanted S.M. to have the chance to be happy with Ethyn and Frenz. 

S.M. hated that Mina was so damn self-sacrificing on that front. Mina had shrugged off her emotions on such a subject many times, and S.M. had learned that discussing it on most occasions wasn't an easy task. However, despite Mina's attempts to hide it, S.M. was fully aware of how hurt her sister had been when their parents made such a choice. Even if they were pushed to abandon their daughters by Surion, that did little to earn Ethyn and Frenz sympathy in Mina's perspective. She was intent on believing that they should have stood up for their children. S.M. and Mina hadn't asked to be born, something Mina had stated many times before. The least their parents could have done was defend them. 

S.M.'s anger towards Ethyn and Frenz had been soothed over the past few weeks. The war in general had left her exhausted, and though S.M. was fully aware of how petty she had the power to be, she found herself too tired to even hold it against them. All she wanted was for the pain to go away. The past year had brought her a family that made her blood relations feel sad and pathetic by comparison. The Second Camaraderie was the group that truly made S.M. feel at home, and she couldn't imagine such a fact changing anytime soon. 

"Here they come," Kanoa suddenly said, and S.M. snapped out of her trance. Even despite her previous animosity towards her parents, S.M. smoothed out the trousers of the suit she had taken to wearing. Even though she was technically a princess with her parents having reclaimed her once again, S.M. detested the elaborate nature of the clothing she was wearing, and she was desperate for the graduation to be over so that she could slip out of them. 

Sure enough though, Ethyn and Frenz were approaching the group, and S.M. couldn't tell if she was more disappointed that they had shown up or angry that this was a rare occurrence. She forced herself to bite back sarcasm in the name of peace. She wouldn't be able to truly embrace tranquility if she continued to remain petty with her parents, and while S.M. hated that such a fact rang true, she knew better than to protest it. 

"Mother, Father... I'm glad that you were able to make it," Mina greeted as she walked slowly towards Ethyn and Frenz. The embrace that they shared was tense, and Mina's gaze remained unreadable until after they had pulled away from one another. Somehow, that only made S.M. feel worse about the whole afair, and she hadn't even realized that it was possible for her dread to grow further.

"We wouldn't miss it for the world," Ethyn assured her, a bright smile spreading across her face. It was easy to see where both S.M. and Mina had found their appearances from. Starlight knew that neither one of them looked anything like Frenz. Ethyn's skin was a deep yet warm brown color, and her eyes were as dark as coffee in a way that made her seem almost as radiant as the sun. Frenz, on the other hand, was as pale as it got, and his red curly hair was unkempt and disastrous. It was hard to believe that he was related to his daughters at all with how little they had in common from a physical appearance perspective. 

"This way," Mina said next. She had a graceful smile on her face, but S.M. could tell that she was faking it. She wished that this wasn't an issue at all. If Ethyn and Frenz had simply stood up for them in the past, then--

No. Thinking about what could have been wasn't going to help anyone. S.M. forced herself to take a grounding breath, banishing the thought before it could fester. The last thing she wanted was to make herself upset on one of the most exciting days of Mina's life. After three years of attending classes at Alitia, Mina was finally going to be stepping into the world as an independent young woman. On top of that, she had been involved with ending two wars within the past year, something that only added to her already impressive array of accolades. In S.M.'s opinion, it was impressive that Mina was there at all after what they had been through, and yet, Mina was not only there, but she made it seem effortless. S.M. felt pride swell in her chest for her sister's accomplishments, and yet, the emotion was stronger than anything positive she had felt towards her parents in too long for her to quantify. 

It was a slow process for S.M., Mina, and Kanoa to lead the couple to their seats for the graduation ceremony. S.M. couldn't help but wonder why Kanoa's parents couldn't have come and made this situation at least a tiny bit less awkward, but she knew that the reason Mina and Kanoa were going to Rivergold in the first place after graduation was precisely because outside matters had kept them from coming. Kanoa didn't seem to mind it too much, and she was silent yet supportive as she carefully gauged Mina's reactions. In a way, it felt as if they were all walking on a tightrope, unsure of when the wind was going to blow and send them all careening into the abyss of negative emotions waiting below.

S.M. sat down slowly, trying her best to not be caught up in the small details of the situation. She knew that her hatred wasn't going to do anything to help her, so she was going to have to concentrate on other matters. She let out another sigh as she allowed her fingers to pull in towards her palm in a tight fist. She hated this, but she had agreed to follow through with at least attempting to forgive Ethyn and Frenz. Mina was allowing them to come to the graduation only because she wanted to see if S.M. was okay with their parents entering their lives once again. S.M. was going to put in at least as much effort in return. She owed Mina that much. 

She did her best to focus on the conversation at hand. While it was tense, Ethyn and Frenz were clearly trying, and that did at least a little something to ease her fears. Despite S.M.'s insistences that she wasn't going to be able to help herself if she was constantly thinking about all of the ways that her parents had faltered, she found herself wondering again and again what would have happened if perhaps the situation had been different. This never would have been an issue if Ethyn and Frenz simply knew how to defend their children properly, after all, and that was a thought that S.M. couldn't shake no matter how hard she tried. 

~~~~~

Cerise had come along, in all honesty, as a natural part of formality. December had wound up agreeing to attend the graduation ceremony since it would give her a chance to see Salem and Altina after all of the time she had been spending on Igni focusing on the recovery process. December needed a break from Igni, and Cerise did as well. She had only recently returned to the planet after her brief endeavors with her birth family on N-Yx, but she was still fully aware of the fact that she was getting tired of having to constantly deal with the emotional overload that came with her shift of location. 

It wasn't that Cerise was unhappy per se to be back with her birth family. In fact, that couldn't have been further from the truth. Cerise was simply struggling to adjust to the new environment. It was odd to have a family that constantly told her how much they cared after growing up on Igni, a planet where affection was rare at best. The closest person to Cerise had always been December, but given that her adoptive mother was far from being the type to smother her with open love, Cerise found it almost suffocating when her mother treated her in such a way. Cerise understood that it was because Shiho was just starting to move past her previous issues with grief after losing her daughter so many years ago, but it still made her feel oddly uncomfortable despite how many times she tried to banish the thought from her mind.

"This is going to be an interesting ceremony, wouldn't you say?" came a voice from nearby, snapping Cerise out of her trance and deep thoughts. She glanced up to see that December had led her in the direction of Altina, Salem, and Minerva. The five of them were gathered on the edge of the area, indulging in a final moment of peace before Altina and Minerva were inevitably dragged away to take care of the technical issues that came with the graduation ceremony.

"We're going to have a lot to cover when we start giving speeches," Altina agreed, and Cerise realized that Minerva had been the one to speak. She had to confess that Minerva was doing a great job of healing after her grievous wound from the final battle on Igni. Clearly she was doing better than she had been in the past. After all, her brother had been well enough to leave with Aurore to return to Neo-Yen with their mission over. That certainly had to count for something in Minerva's favor as well given how their injuries were so similar.

"I don't think that any of us expected to be dragged into two wars within the span of a single school year," Minerva snorted with a shake of her head. "The last time that the Millennium Six were involved in a single war was during the conflict that the previous Keeper of Moonlight started, and that was more than twenty-five years ago now. I don't think that this is anything like that, but it really does show you how our long record of peace was broken this year."

Cerise forced herself to stop thinking of the subject as soon as Minerva brought it up, and she let out a grounding breath to concentrate on the situation at hand. Graduation. Yes. This was a safe space, somewhere that she was going to be able to enjoy herself. She was far from the cloying presence of her mother, the detached yet caring eyes of her siblings, and the constant, desperate desire for recovery that Cerise knew to belong to Igni. This was something she needed more than she had ever been willing to admit in the past. 

She glanced down to her hand despite her attempts to keep from staring. Cerise had been doing that a lot lately as much as she hated to admit it. Her Sealing had come as a surprise to many, and Cerise was perhaps the one who had been left the most shocked by it all. When she learned the history of what it meant to be a Sealed One in the first place, her stomach had dropped into the ground. Cerise had always been vaguely aware of the magic of Starlight that existed in the Second Camaraderie, but hearing that she was destined to fight alongside the new bearer of Starlight was a different matter entirely.

In a way, Cerise knew that she had been the one to select herself for such a fate. Becoming a Sealed One wasn't entirely a matter of destiny despite Cerise's attempts to pass it off as such; she had shown the strength of her resolve and that she was going to fight alongside those who had aided her during the tail end of the conflict on Igni. It was something that she had chosen to do, and in turn, the gods had granted her the strength that she would need to make true to her promise. It was unsettling to think about given how different she was from the rest of the team, and in a way, Cerise was terrified of what might happen if she saw them at the graduation ceremony.

Almost on cue, Cerise glanced up and saw that a trio of familiar faces had appeared in the courtyard. Luce, Carys, and Helena scanned the area before their gazes fell upon Iris, Tanith, Anneliese, and Nebula. The two parties converged, and Cessair dashed up to them soon afterwards. Cerise tried to bite back the way that her mouth suddenly tasted bitter and unforgiving. She was going to have to get used to standing at their sides, something that she detested but wouldn't be able to avoid. 

Cerise didn't hate them by any stretch of the imagination. In all truth, she was more concerned about them hating her. She knew realistically that they were going to have to settle their differences soon enough, but Cerise had no idea how something like that was going to be accomplished. How could she do anything to help the situation? Apologize for making them into her enemy because she was working under the influence of a king who morphed her into a perfect fighter after kidnapping her when she was a child? That felt too wordy and personal, and the last thing Cerise wanted to do was try to excuse her past actions. She had been in the wrong, and she would never be able to forget such an undeniable truth.

She forced herself to look back to the conversation that she was vaguely part of, and she noticed that Salem was speaking while the others listened intently. Cerise tuned into what he was saying to the best of her ability, hating the way that her gaze kept drifting over in the direction of the girls that she was meant to fight with one day. Somehow, the day had become a lot less relaxing in the span of two minutes. 

~~~~~

"I've already reserved a set of seats for us," came the voice of Cessair as the introductory conversation between the girls came to a close. Her red hair was tied back into a style that was halfway up and halfway down, and the curls that fell from her head were intense and bright. Her dress was a beautiful turquoise color that did a great job of highlighting the patches of scales found across various surfaces of her body. 

Luce nodded dully as she trailed after Cessair. She was happy to see that Cessair had claimed a small row of chairs near the back of the area, offering the group with the perfect way to leave when the ceremony was over. They were still close enough to see the action, but they would be able to depart as soon as they were ready. That was certainly a relief. The last thing that Luce wanted was to be caught up in the activity that would undoubtedly come with the end of the ceremony. 

Luce settled down into her seat, Cessair on one side and Helena on the other. She leaned back, allowing her lower arm to rest against the back of her seat. The chair was simple yet comfortable, but Luce didn't allow herself to indulge in such pleasures yet. She instead focused on scanning the area for traces of S.M. and Mina. 

Soon enough, Luce was able to catch sight of the two girls. They were sitting with Kanoa and their parents, and Luce could practically feel the tension in the air despite being so far away that she couldn't see their facial expressions. Of course it was going to be awkward. S.M. had been speaking of such a truth ever since she learned that her parents were attending the graduation ceremony, and Luce trusted her judgement completely. It wasn't an easy subject to handle, though that felt like the understatement of the century. 

Then there was Sylvia. Luce had waved to her girlfriend when she first arrived, and she could tell that Sylvia was nothing short of miserable. Once again, it felt like a given. Luce didn't know much about Sylvia's father, but as far as she was concerned, she had heard enough. Sylvia didn't like discussing her father much, and even after Myra and Chester were returned to her, this fact remained true. She always seemed notably uncomfortable when he was brought up, and Luce couldn't help but think about how there was a reason Sylvia hadn't wanted to return back to Hiloft as long as she would be alone with him in the castle. 

"So, what plans do you have for the summer break?"

Luce was startled out of her thoughts when she heard Cessair's voice beside her, and she glanced over to her friend. Cessair's eyes were bright from behind her glasses, and it was clear that she was waiting for an answer. 

Luce cleared her throat as she forced herself to focus on this conversation after casting her attention elsewhere. "I'm going to return to Amity and see how my father is doing," she replied. "The mercenaries have been missing me. It's been too long since we were able to fight together. I'm going to use my magic to my advantage when we get jobs back home too."

Cessair's grin spread across her face. "That sounds like lots of fun... I'm planning on staying here at Alitia. Severine doesn't exactly want to travel anywhere, not that I can blame her. With how busy everything has been lately, anyone would want to embrace peace after all this time," she commented. "Maybe I could convince her to let me come back with you for a while. You know, if that's okay with you and the mercenaries. I guess I just want to be given the chance to meet everyone."

Even if Cessair didn't say it outright, Luce knew what she was talking about. In this situation, 'everyone' referred exclusively to Cryon and Lianna. Luce and Cessair hadn't discussed their shared blood much in the past, but it was something that neither one of them could avoid. Cryon and Lianna also held blood from Iago Thanatos, and Cessair, who lacked any remaining blood relations to speak of, was desperate to get to know them better. They had briefly interacted during the Thanatos War, but Cessair's curiosity ran deep enough for her to want to follow Luce elsewhere. 

Luce was on the verge of offering a response--of saying that she was more than glad to have Cessair come along even if it was just so that she didn't completely abandon her life at Alitia--when an echoing sound that reminded her of a microphone spread through the area. Luce winced at the sound and glanced up to the stage, seeing that Fromir had taken his place in front of the main podium. The other head teachers of the Millennium Six were gathered behind him. 

"I guess it's starting," Cessair whispered as she settled back into position. Luce nodded and fell silent as she focused on the stage. This was it. After this ceremony, the past year could be safely considered finished and done with, allowing her and everyone else the chance to properly move on. Luce smiled to herself at the reminder of her own survival. 

She had done it, and so had everyone else, something she had never been more proud of before that moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The opening of this book is so much less depressing than Crown of Ash that it's almost comical
> 
> -Digital


	4. IV: A Far-Flung Rose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sylvia continues to struggle with her father until sudden newcomers arrive.

Sylvia was having a hard time focusing on the ceremony no matter how much she tried to focus on what was happening around her. It seemed as if her eyes simply kept drifting off to her father, and she wasn't able to keep from focusing on him regardless of how much effort she put in. Sylvia began to squeeze her fingers together, desperate for a distraction that would take her away from the courtyard of Sacred Heart for just a few moments. 

"The past year has been a unique one for Millennia and the Millennium Six, but our students have still managed to pull ahead and make a place for themselves in this tumultuous world. There is no word to describe such perseverance aside from pride..."

Minerva's words were little more than a distant drone to Sylvia, and she closed her eyes carefully. She hadn't known how she was going to handle this situation, and it was clear as could be that she still didn't know what to do. Howard was silent as he watched Minerva with a gaze that was best described as passive and detached. Sylvia wondered if he was even able to put any attention onto the ceremony after all that had happened in the past. Would she be able to blame him?

She looked down to her lap and watched the way that her fingernails glittered in the sunshine. Carys and Nebula had offered to help her paint her nails a few days prior in preparation for the ceremony, and Sylvia had been more than happy to let them pitch in. Of course, she was still struggling to keep a grip on herself even with the grounding presence of the glossy sensation against her fingers. Sylvia forced herself to look up to Minerva, realizing that nobody was unaware that she wasn't paying full attention to what was taking place on the stage. 

Sylvia had been watching her fingernails for a few moments when she heard a whirring sound in the distance. Her head snapped up, and she glanced around with a frown, desperately trying to place where the noise could have been coming from. When she ultimately came up short, she resisted the urge to nudge at Myra and Chester to see if they were aware of what she had heard. 

Sylvia couldn't tell if it was a good or bad thing that Myra and Chester had already responded by the time that she looked in their direction. In fact, Myra was already scanning the skies while Chester's eyebrows had furrowed together, a clear sign that his attention was anywhere but the stage. Sylvia had no idea if she liked the idea that she wasn't imagining it or the notion that something awful was about to happen more. Both of them made her feel queasy and nauseous. 

A streak of black and green appeared in Sylvia's peripheral vision, and her head whipped around to see what it was that had caused such a sudden flash of motion. When she finally managed to place the source of the action, Sylvia realized that it was a spaceship. Traveling through empty space was the second most common method of transportation, and Sylvia had been on many a ship in her life. However, something about this ship made her feel strange, almost as if there was a voice deep inside telling her that this was different from what she was used to. 

Minerva's voice only fell silent when the spaceship swerved around for another glance at the ceremony's area, and she swore into the microphone before throwing one hand over the receiver and ducking down. Sylvia's hands flew over her head as she willed her hair to keep from flying out of control. What was the pilot of that ship thinking? Were they trying to terrify and hurt the people on the ground?

Sylvia didn't feel safe returning to her full height until after she heard the decompression of air that signified the ship had landed. She looked over carefully, realizing belatedly that her hands had started to shake. The people in the crowd were chattering, and Sylvia could barely hear their voices above the screaming in her own mind. Who was responsible for this? Why was it happening in the middle of the ceremony? Why did Sylvia feel as if this was going to be a sign of everything spiraling into hell?

A man appeared in the docking area of the ship, and he walked down the ramp that slid to the ground without any hesitation. His expression was stoic in a way that sent a shiver running up Sylvia's spine. Why did she feel as if she had met him before? She placed one hand over her mouth to keep from showing openly how awful she felt about this. 

Minerva removed her hand from the microphone and glared in the direction of the man. The edges of her hair were starting to glow with a gentle red color, a sign that she was on the verge of exploding with anger if the man didn't explain himself immediately. "Who are you?" she asked, her voice filled with the promise of a threat. Sylvia felt a shiver run up her spine. 

"I'm here to pick someone up from this ridiculous place that you call a planet," the man explained with a snort. Since his voice was easily heard across the crowd, Sylvia assumed that he had cast a spell on himself to ensure that his voice traveled farther than it would have otherwise. "Sophia."

The single word made so much surprising sense to Sylvia that she could have fallen over. She should have seen this coming. Sophia's odd behavior in the past few weeks had to have a cause, something that Sylvia had deduced quite some time ago. It was difficult to say how this man tied into it all, but Sylvia had an awful feeling about it. Why would this man simply interrupt the ceremony if he needed to speak with Sophia? Surely it couldn't have been that desperate, and if it was, then why wouldn't he make an attempt to get into contact with her instead of crashing the graduation ceremony?

Zylphia was the next one to respond, and she snapped softly, casting an amplification spell of her own. "We didn't hear a name," she told the man, her voice only slightly less openly antagonistic than Minerva's had been. 

The man cleared his throat, and a sickening smile spread across his face. Sylvia's nails dug into her thighs before she realized what was happening. Why did that smugness remind her so much of Iago? It was almost ridiculous how uncanny the resemblance was even though Sophia somehow doubted that there was any blood connection between the two of them. "How could I forget my manners? I am Colin Broach, a noble of Fortunia. I am here to retrieve my fiance, Sophia Greeves. How is that for an introduction?" the man asked. 

"Fiance?" Sylvia asked, feeling her stomach drop into her feet as her eyes went wide. She couldn't have heard that correctly, right? Sylvia scanned her eyes over the crowd and saw that Sophia had taken a seat away from most of the others in the area, and judging by the way that her shoulders were slouched in shame, Colin was speaking the truth. 

"You can't just crash our graduation ceremony this way!" Minerva shouted, and the beginnings of flames spread across the bottom of her hair. The flare that rose up from her bright tresses was brief, but it was still enough to make much of the audience flinch. Minerva was nothing if not terrifying when upset, and this circumstance was more than enough to rub her the wrong way. 

The man chuckled, and Sylvia felt as if she was going to break skin with the way she was clawing at her thigh if somebody didn't stop her. He looked and sounded so much like Iago. The physical resemblance was lacking, yes, but the egotistical parallels and blatant entitlement made her feel sick. Judging by how pale the other members of her family had gotten, she believed that they felt much the same way. "She should have simply complied with the orders of the king when it was announced that she was to return home," Colin declared. Sylvia swore that she was going to be sick. 

"I suggest you leave at once before we are forced to take drastic measures," Caius announced. Even without an amplification spell, his voice was loud enough to be heard throughout the area easily. Sylvia's breathing was starting to speed up, and her heart was screaming in her chest. How did it feel as if the walls were closing in on her when she was outdoors? That shouldn't have been possible. She was safe, Iago wasn't there, and everything was going to be fine. If that truly was the case though, then why did she feel as if the universe was about to crash down on her at a moment's notice?

Colin let out a snort and shook his head. "You wouldn't be able to stop us even if you tried," he answered simply. Sylvia opened her mouth, finally able to move at least slightly after the debilitating fear set in, but she was never given the chance to ask what Colin meant by 'us'. 

Instead, the ramp of the ship was flooded with people wearing the armor of Fortunia. Sylvia recalled seeing it from pictures within books and news outlets, but it was something completely different to see in person. Sylvia rose to her feet carefully and glanced around the crowd furiously, searching for a way to get out of this situation without having to fight. 

"You're making a mistake," Zylphia announced next. Beside her, Jin looked terrified behind his poorly-crafted smile. Altina seemed relieved that she had remembered to bring a few weapons to the ceremony for security purposes, and the same applied to Caius. Minerva's rage was endless, and Fromir didn't seem to be able to stop looking at her out of the corner of his eye no matter how much he tried. 

Colin chuckled. "Try me," he announced. "By the orders of the Royal Family of Fortunia, you are being asked to hand over Sophia Greeves. If you fail to comply, then I won't hesitate to strike any of you down. If you get in my way, you are considered an enemy of my home by default, and I will kill those who I must in order to accomplish my goals."

Sylvia forced herself to let out a careful breath before light sparked and traveled across her body. Her Isolis form had taken root a few moments later, and she realized that she had been the catalyst to countless others in the crowd also transforming. Sylvia allowed white lightning to crackle between her fingers, and the space around her seemed to buzz with a silent energy that she knew better than anything else. 

"Get out of here, Father," came Chester's voice, a grounding melody against the tempest coming at Sylvia from all other directions. "We'll make sure that nothing happens while you're trying to get away. We know how to handle ourselves."

Howard's face was unreadable, and his eyes were simply numb. He took a few steps away at Chester's direction, and Sylvia almost wondered if he even had the strength left to argue at all. The look in his eyes made it seem as if she had already received the answer to her question, and she watched as he retreated into the crowd. She hated the relief that hit her with no small force when he disappeared from view completely. 

"Come on," Myra said next, and both she and Chester transformed. Sylvia glanced up to the skies and realized that the other students in the crowd had already manifested their magical forms as well for the sake of taking on the fight at hand. Sylvia watched as her siblings rocketed into the heavens, and she forced herself to follow them soon afterwards as she swallowed down the immense strength of her own nerves. 

"Sylvia!"

S.M.'s voice brought Sylvia spiraling back to reality, and she glanced over her shoulder to see the girl coming in her direction. "We have to find the others," S.M. told Sylvia before the blonde girl had the chance to say anything. Sylvia simply nodded in agreement, unsure of if there was anything she would be able to say that would help to fix this. Everything was moving both a million miles an hour and all too slow, and she didn't know how she was supposed to handle it. 

S.M.'s fingers closed around Sylvia's wrist, and the energy mage let out a yelp of muted shock as adrenaline began to fully run its course. S.M. guided Sylvia through the crowd without any issues, swerving between bodies before she managed to find herself beside the bright blue beacon that was Luce. Sylvia had barely noticed that they had been moving at all, but she was glad to be given the chance to escape her father for just a few moments. Sylvia hated how much she wanted to be away from him after all of the effort that he had put in just to be there at all. 

"Where's Sophia?" Luce questioned intensely as she glanced around at the other members of their group. "If she's their target, then we have to do what we can to defend her." Sylvia was glad to see that Luce was just the same as always, wanting to help others above all else. They didn't have many answers on the matter of why the enemy was there at all, but that wasn't going to stop Luce. 

Iris gasped and pointed nearby. Sure enough, Sophia was standing by herself, shaking as she looked desperately for a way out of the situation she had found herself in. Iris streaked through the air and grabbed Sophia under the arms before hauling her back towards the rest of the group. Iris' strength was impressive to Sylvia, and she knew that all of the fencing Iris participated in was far from being simply for show. 

"Sophia, what's going on?" Carys questioned, her voice tinny and lacking in composure. She seemed more than thoroughly flustered by the sudden attack, and Sylvia didn't think that she had seen Carys this anxious in a long time. 

"I'm sorry," was all Sophia could force herself to say. Unlike the rest of her companions, she still hadn't transformed, and Sophia fell to her knees when her legs could no longer support her. Tears were streaming down her face as sobs wracked her small frame. She seemed so vulnerable in that moment that it made Sylvia's heart feel as if it was being sliced in half repeatedly. She wanted to reach out and tell her friend that it was all going to be fine, but she highly doubted that was what Sophia needed in that moment. 

None of them dared to say anything in that moment, seeming to understand that they all knew what they had to do. Sylvia looked in the direction of a nearby soldier of Fortunia that was steadily approaching. Attacks of green vines swirled towards her, but Sylvia thrust one hand outwards. White lightning exploded forth from her palm, slamming into the soldier's chest. He was sent rocketing backwards, hitting three other fighters in the process. Sylvia grinned to herself. "Bullseye," she whispered. 

"We have to defend Sophia! I don't know why they want her, but we can't let that happen!" Iris declared firmly. She had started to take the metal away from the nearby chairs and was using it as a large weapon to smack away any soldiers that got too close. It was an easy way to put up a defensive front, and she was doing a great job at covering their backs on one side of the courtyard. 

"There are a lot of them here," Carys commented offhandedly. "I don't know how so many of them were able to fit into that tiny little spaceship, but I guess that they made it work. Then again, I guess those things are known for being roomier on the inside than you'd expect."

"It doesn't matter how they managed to get here. We're going to have to send them back where they came from," S.M. told her. She jumped into the air before coming down and slamming one foot into the grass. The earth began to tremble in the area before her, spreading outwards quickly to knock the soldiers off balance. From there, it was easy enough for the other fighters to dispatch of them. 

Sylvia sent another soldier sprawling backwards before she glanced over her shoulder at Sophia. She could tell that there was more going on in her friend's mind than she was willing to admit, though Sylvia supposed that this was simply how Sophia had come to operate. Her secrecy as of late made a lot more sense all of a sudden, and Sylvia wondered if perhaps she was somehow aware of this. Sylvia had enough faith in Sophia to know that her friend hadn't directly called upon the forces of Fortunia to attack Millennia, but there had to be something else to the puzzle that she hadn't yet noticed yet. Sophia didn't seem to want to leave either, and if that was the case, then what was it that had pushed all of this to take place?

"They're not going to be able to get away with this," Luce commented. Her attention wasn't entirely on the fight at hand, and she was instead looking off in the direction of the stage where the Starlight Camaraderie was standing. It was easy to see the flares at the edges of Minerva's hair, and she and the rest of her team were fighting fiercely against the enemy forces. Colin was leading the attack against them personally, seeming to have realized that they were the ones who stood the best chance of stopping him. 

"Oh, he's so dead if he keeps this up," Tanith remarked, letting out a nervous laugh. "He shouldn't have come here at all, but if he's going to cause problems for us this way, then... He's going to have to face the consequences, and he can't complain about that when push comes to shove. He asked for this to happen."

Sylvia nodded her agreement. Colin was trying to get the Starlight Camaraderie out of his way, but since they were all legendary fighters and had been for nearly three decades, he wasn't going to stand a chance. His confidence and brazen hubris was going to be his downfall if he continued to attack the head teachers of the Millennium Six. It wouldn't take too much more for them to knock him back where he came from. 

Until that time came though, it was important for Sylvia and the rest of the people in the area to fight off the Fortunia soldiers. Their numbers were far more even than Sylvia wanted to admit, and she realized just how huge the spaceship was when she got a bit closer to it while pursuing a few of her foes. There were too many of them for her to count, but Sylvia knew that she didn't have to know numbers in order to come out on top. 

Sylvia's gaze settled on a small cluster of soldiers nearby, and she smiled to herself as she darted in their direction. She landed just in front of the soldiers, and as they sent clusters of vines and plants after her, Sylvia took in a deep breath. The air around her began to buzz, and the sensation spread outwards in the direction of her enemies. She could hear their breath grow faint as their energy was completely sucked away, left at Sylvia's mercy. 

The new power that thrived in Sylvia's blood was incredible, and she felt as if the world was bending to her every whim. She released another blast of white lightning, but this time, it was enough to tear through an entire group of soldiers that had dared to come too close to her. The plants that were sent in her direction had been forgotten, left to fall limply to the ground because of the lack of strength fueling them. Sylvia had taken the energy of the mages who had tried to send the vines towards her in the first place, and their magic was no longer enough to keep the plants thriving. 

As the routine of the battle settled in, Sylvia realized that everything was going to be alright. She had been frightened when seeing Colin because of how much he reminded her of Iago, but she refused to allow the past to hold her in its grasp any longer. It was easy for her to cast aside the past as long as she was fighting alongside her companions, and Sylvia loved that she was able to forget about her previous issues with her father with them. It wasn't exactly the ideal circumstance for her to forget, but she still enjoyed it more than she would have ever liked to admit to outside figures. 

Sylvia had managed to plow her way through a large number of Fortunia's soldiers, leaving them weakened and vulnerable for others to swoop in and dispatch of them completely. The students of the Millennium Six weren't using deadly force, instead doing everything in their power to simply push back the opposing faction. Sylvia assumed that everything would be alright as soon as they were able to send Colin packing. He was their commander, and he lacked any sense of fortitude as far as Sylvia was concerned. If he was hit hard enough, he would run away with his tail tucked between his legs since it would be easier than openly admitting weakness. 

She risked a glance over her shoulder in Sophia's direction. Nebula and Anneliese were the two closest people to the nature enchantress, and Sophia still hadn't moved from her place on the grass as she held tightly at her arms and sobbed in silence. Sylvia felt guilt and fear gain a stranglehold on her heart once again, and she bit down on her lip before turning her attention back to the fight at hand. It seemed as if the battle was going in their favor, at least for the time being, and that meant that she was going to get answers after the fact. 

Sophia was entirely unresponsive to the outside world. Even as Anneliese wrapped her arm around Sophia's shoulders and tried to whisper encouragement into her ear, Sophia remained silent and still as a statue save for the occasional sobs that wracked her fragile form. She had long since given up on the concept of fighting, and when she looked up to Anneliese, there was such terror in her eyes that it seemed as if she had never known safety before in her life. Nobody knew quite how to respond to the sudden shift, and Sylvia found herself wishing desperately for someone to tell her that everything was going to be alright. Everything was complicated, but she still yearned for security. 

In that moment, Sylvia was little more than a collection of contradictions barely placed together in a form that was fitting of the physical world. She was glad to be away from the awkwardness that came with interacting with her father, but she felt terrible on the matter of how it had happened. There were too many questions for her to count regarding what had happened with Sophia, and Sylvia bit down on her lip. The day had been meant to be special, and yet, it had ended in disaster. "Damn it..." Sylvia whispered as she unleashed yet another powerful blast from her fingertips. The world was spinning in every direction, and she wondered if anyone would ever be able to get it back under control. 

~~~~~

Fromir flinched at the sickening smack of Caius' foot making rough contact with a nearby mage's stomach. The mage was sent stumbling backwards off the side of the stage before hitting the grass with a noisy clapping sound. Fromir's head had started to pound. He had thought that today of all days would end well. This was one of the most important days for the Millennium Six all year, and given how awful the previous school year had been, this was a break that all of them needed. The security that came with the end of the war on Igni had only just started to set in, and then everything started to fall apart again. 

His anguish was not something that he held alone. In fact, Minerva was beyond open about it with the way that she threw around fireballs with the anger of a demon. Altina's blades flashed in the morning air, and Zylphia was little more than a shadow among the hazy stage and its surroundings. Nothing made sense to Fromir, and yet, everything was in a strange sense of clarity. He didn't know how to describe it, but he blamed his adrenaline and paranoia for everything. 

The one behind the invasion, Colin Broach, moved towards him. Fromir threw up his hands, and the shadows in the area began to thrash before flashing up to defend him. The darkness created a shield that blocked out an attack of green vines from Colin, and the shadows lashed out a moment later by pinning his hands above his head. Thin strings of shadow went between Fromir's fingers and Colin's wrists, and Fromir found himself raising his hand up until Colin was suspended above the ground. 

"You shouldn't have come here," Minerva suddenly said, one hand reached out towards a nearby mage. She had twisted the mage's arm behind their back, and as the soldier writhed in pain, Minerva cast them aside before stalking towards Colin. Her eyes narrowed when she was on eye level with him, and Fromir found himself realizing once again how much taller Minerva was than him. The difference only seemed notable when she was upset this way. 

"You have no idea what you're doing by interfering with my mission!" Colin shrieked noisily, thrashing against the shadow bindings that were keeping him in place. "I know why I'm here, and you shouldn't try to stop me! I want to be with my future wife, and under the orders of--"

"I don't give a damn about the orders of your royal family," Minerva snapped back. "You shouldn't have come here. I said it once, and I'll say it again. You have two options here. You can take your soldiers and leave right now, or I'll make sure that you leave along with my comrades. I'm sure that you've heard of us... The Starlight Camaraderie never backs down in the face of injustice, and you fit the bill perfectly. What is it going to be? Answer now."

Colin looked at Minerva through narrowed eyes and gritted teeth. He couldn't thrash as much as the seconds passed by, and Fromir assumed that it was because the shadows suspending him above the ground were disturbing his blood flow. "This isn't over," Colin threatened despite the truth of the matter being blatantly obvious. He had been too confident in charging into the battle without any knowledge of what he was up against, and this hubris was going to be his downfall. 

"I believe that we both know that isn't true," Minerva snorted. She gave a brief nod in Fromir's direction, and he took that as his cue to drop Colin. The enemy commander was left to crumble as little more than a pile of limbs against the ground, and he whimpered when Minerva reached down and picked him up by his collar. "Get out of here or else. I won't warn you again." The tips of her hair flashed with a fire stronger than anything that Fromir had seen all day, and he looked away to keep from getting nauseous at the overwhelming negative energy emanating from Minerva in that moment. 

As soon as Minerva dropped him, Colin scrambled away. Two of his fingers slipped swiftly into his mouth, and the whistle that echoed in the air was piercing. The soldiers of Fortunia seemed to understand that this was a sign for them to retreat, and they all began to abandon their individual battles. The students and teachers of Millennia offered one final strike as a way of assuring that their foes wouldn't be returning anytime soon. 

"Should we give chase, Zyl?" Jin questioned as he came up beside Zylphia. He was shaking slightly, and a small knife was in his hand. Since his magic wasn't as blatantly confrontational, he was left to focus on melee combat instead. 

Zylphia replied immediately by shaking her head. "We need to make sure that all of the outsiders who came to see the ceremony are taken care of first. It seems to me that the graduation isn't going to be able to happen today. Injuries will need to be treated, and it will be crucial for us to investigate the cause of this attack," she told him. Jin nodded, his expression overflowing with relief at her words. 

Fromir let out a sigh as well. The enemy had been given the upper hand that came with the advantage of surprise, but they had still been unable to succeed. Fromir glanced down at his hands, not realizing that they were shaking until after he forced his eyes back into focus. This was a disaster, and there was no other word that seemed fitting to describe the day. Fromir suddenly yearned for Leviathan to be there with him, but since that wasn't an option, all Fromir could do was focus on the way that his breath came in and out of his lungs as he wondered just how quickly everything could fall apart from times of peace. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember Colin from the first book? He's back and important oh no
> 
> -Digital


	5. V: Starlit Flight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sophia explains the attack on Sacred Heart. Meanwhile, Cryon and the mercenaries resolve to leave Amity.

The journey back to Alitia was marked with mostly silence with bouts of occasional crying on Sophia's part. Luce kept on glancing over in the other girl's direction, expecting to see something that would offer her an explanation about what had taken place at the time of the attack, but Sophia didn't allow any traces of anything to slip through. She didn't dare to breathe a word, and nobody seemed to know how to approach her without causing everything to flick over and subsequently fall apart. 

Luce wished that she had done something sooner. She wanted to criticize herself to hell and back until she could turn back time to change what had happened. The signs of this had been appearing for quite some time, but nobody wanted to be the one to say anything and topple Sophia in the process. Luce knew that there was nothing she could have done deep down, but that didn't stop the guilt from taking her over. Sophia wasn't going to tell them about anything that she wasn't comfortable with sharing, and unfortunately, there wasn't much that she wanted to talk about in that instant. All the pushing in the world still wouldn't have changed anything. 

It wasn't until after Helena had managed to settle Sophia down on the couch of their apartment that Sophia looked up. The eight occupants of the room were there with Cessair, Nebula, and Anneliese. The sun was high in the sky, and its bright light almost seemed to be mocking them. Nebula flicked on the lights in the room to make sure that nobody was distracted by the cheery atmosphere that the day should have had. It would only make them feel worse about all that had happened, and that was the last thing any of them needed. 

"What's going on?" Tanith asked softly, careful to not push anything too far. She was fully aware of how fragile Sophia could be at times since they were roommates. Tanith had likely been eaten alive by her anxiety as she watched Sophia fall apart in close quarters, and Luce forced herself to not think about how suffocating that could have been. 

Sophia was hesitant at first before she let out a sigh, seeming to realize that she wasn't going to be able to worm her way out of this no matter how hard she tried. "I... The man that attacked us is my future husband," she managed to say. "He's come here once before... The fight when I got my Isolis."

"That was him?" Carys asked, her eyes wide. "I've heard lots of things about him before, you know. Not good things, mind you. He has an ego that's as large as the planet of Millennia itself, and if you even look at him wrong, he could lash out at you with all the anger in the world."

Sophia nodded. "I-I bet that Iago knew about our engagement since it was public knowledge for a while, and... He decided to send Colin after me as a way of getting me out of his way. After all, if I was distracted with him, then... I don't know. Maybe he thought that targeting my weaknesses would have made it harder for me to fight back. He seemed to give up on that soon enough. As soon as S.M. got her Isolis, that plan was thrown out the window. He just wanted to get rid of us, and any personal grudges didn't really matter much in the grand scheme of that," she said. 

Luce nodded to herself as she slowly processed what Sophia was trying to imply. Iago had intended to use the weakness of Sophia's unstable connection with Colin against her, and that exploitation was far from being positive. Sophia hadn't spoken much about the fight where she got her Isolis, and as far as Luce could tell, that was because it was a touchy subject for her. 

"Colin is saying that he wants me to come back home to Fortunia," Sophia went on, not seeming to notice the lull in Luce's thought process. "In all honesty, Alitia was the way that I was going to get away from him and my father. I couldn't spend the rest of my life under his thumb. I... I was never the best with magic, you know. Healing was my specialty, and then... I prayed to the goddess of Fortunia for a blessing of strength that would allow me to grow more powerful. I suppose that she listened to my pleas, and it gave me the chance to enroll here."

"Can you tell us more about your family?" S.M. asked carefully, clearly wanting to make sure that she wasn't crossing any lines along the way. 

Sophia hesitated before looking down at the floor in front of her. "My father... He's the king of Fortunia. Maverick Greeves... He's been trying to marry me to Colin for as long as I can remember. He says that Colin is the one who can finally give someone like me worth. From a technical standpoint, I should have the power to rule over Fortunia on my own, but... He doesn't want that. He wants Colin to do it instead. He's always preferred Colin to myself, and he makes sure that everyone knows it. My brother decided to become a general instead of taking to the throne, leaving Colin as the one to take over in his stead," she elaborated. 

"Your father must have wanted to speed up the process of you marrying Colin, and that means that you can't carry out the rest of your time here at Alitia," Sylvia concluded, her voice just above a murmur. When Sophia nodded, she let out a sigh. "I wish I knew what to say, Sophia... That's awful. Is there anything we can do to help you?"

Sophia shook her head. "All I can do is go back home. I know that I don't want to do it, and I like to hope that I would be missed if I went back, but... I can't resist forever. You saw what happened today. I tried to resist even just for a minute, and Colin unleashed countless soldiers against the Millennium Six. Even if we came out on top, I... If somebody got hurt because of me, I wouldn't ever be able to live with that guilt. If I just surrender now, then maybe... Maybe it won't be as painful," she said. 

"No," Iris proclaimed sternly. "We aren't going to let you walk off to your home planet if you know that you're going to get hurt." Sophia opened her mouth to object, but Iris held up one hand to keep her from talking. "Sophia, I can see it in your eyes. Even if you aren't saying anything, it's clear that you're afraid of being harmed by him. You're afraid of Colin, and you're afraid of your father. If you don't want to go back there, then you shouldn't have to."

"What are we supposed to do to stand up to them though?" Sophia asked. "They'll do anything to bring me back home. Millennia has seen enough conflict as of late. It would be easier for everyone if I just went back and--"

"We'll run away from them," Anneliese declared confidently. "If they can't catch you, then they can't take you back home. Let's just start moving as soon as we can, and if we roam through the dimension quickly enough, then they won't be able to find us in time."

"You're willing to give up all that for me?" Sophia questioned, her eyes wide in shock. "I don't know if this is a good idea. Separating ourselves from the rest of Millennia will only make us more vulnerable than we would be otherwise, you know."

"We aren't going to have to keep running forever," Cessair pointed out. "We just have to make sure that we can keep it up long enough to make sure that they don't completely pile on top of us. If we can find a way to slow them down enough for them to back off completely, then that would be even better. There has to be something going on within Fortunia... If you ask me, it's just inevitable that we uncover some kind of dark secret."

"What are you talking about?" Nebula inquired, her eyes wide in shock. "I've heard that Fortunia is a fine enough planet to live on... The nobles are far from being perfect, but I don't know if there's any large conspiracy like you're implying, Cessair."

"Well, I'm positive that the crown is hiding something," Cessair declared. "Before the current royal family took over within the past hundred years or so, there were people who lived on Fortunia with powerful connection to the land. They're still most of the occupants of Fortunia, though they've lost the ability to care for their own land because of the nobles. The last of these groups died out around twenty years ago in a highly suspicious incident. If you want my opinion, the royal family must have had something to do with it. Maybe we can use that as a weak point to jab a hole in their defenses and blow everything open."

"That could start another worldwide conflict if we aren't careful," Sophia commented, her voice wavering. "I should just save everybody the trou--"

"You aren't trouble, so stop acting like it!" Carys announced, her eyes pinning Sophia in place. The enchantress of nature clamped her mouth shut at Carys' words as the girl continued. "We can figure something out if we talk to others around here. There has to be a nice way for us to get away from all of this. Let's come up with a plan as soon as we can and take advantage of the battle today to get out of here."

"We aren't going to have all that much time before they catch up with us again," Helena pointed out. "They're going to be arriving back on Fortunia soon enough, and if they get orders to turn around and find us once again, then we'll have to be ready for them."

"Then let's find a way for us to get out of here within the next two days or so. That seems like a good idea," Sylvia said. "That would be perfect in my eyes. We can use the chaos of today to our advantage, and that should make it easy for us to worm our way out of all this without facing the enemy head on again."

"Are you sure that you can just let go of your summer breaks this way?" Sophia questioned. "This is what we've been waiting for throughout the whole school year, and I would feel awful if I was the one who kept you guys from this."

"We're choosing to do this, Sophia," Anneliese assured her. "Besides, what's a break compared to helping a friend? In a way... I guess this will be like a break, actually. We're going to be going on an interplanetary road trip running from the authorities! Doesn't that sound fun?"

"That makes us sound like criminals," Sophia confessed with a shake of her head. "I'm still not sure if we should do this..."

"Well, you aren't getting much of a choice, so it might be best to just go along with it," S.M. pointed out with a shrug. "We're going to find a way to get you out of this situation as soon as possible. Sophia, you've done all sorts of things in the past to help us, and it's only fair that we return the favor. You deserve to be free of this awful situation, so let us help you. Is that clear?"

Sophia was quiet for a long moment before she nodded. She let out a choked sob, and her hands rose to her mouth to keep from showing that she was crying. The illusion did little to keep everyone from discovering the truth though, and tears were streaking down her cheeks freely only a few scarce moments later. "I... Thank you, everyone," she said softly, her voice barely audible even with the silence of the room. 

Tanith was the first one to wrap an arm around Sophia's shoulders, and Helena followed her lead soon afterwards. From there, Cessair joined the embrace, and it was only a matter of time before all of them had been pulled together in a large hug to show their solidarity. Sophia continued to cry at the center of it all, still unsure as to if this was the best idea. Despite her uncertainty, everyone else had already made up their minds as to what they were doing over the next few weeks. 

Luce closed her eyes, hating to admit that she was almost relieved. Sophia's situation was dreadful, yes, but it also meant that none of them had to say goodbye for three months. That was amazing to her, and they would be able to save Sophia from the dreadful circumstances that had been hanging over her head ever since she first came to Alitia. Sophia had been hiding the truth for long enough, but all of the ugly honesties were out in the open, and nothing would be able to pull them back anymore. 

It wasn't until after the group had pulled away from their embrace that Luce glanced over to her room. She didn't know how they were going to figure everything out, but she was positive that the anger that burned in her core was unmistakable. Sophia had been hiding everything prior to that moment, but she wouldn't be able to retreat into herself anymore after the truth had been revealed. 

Maverick Greeves was their next target, and if need be, Colin Broach and Joshua Greeves would fall as well. Luce didn't care who got in her way. If she had to fight them to save Sophia, then she would do it. She would never be able to forget the resignation and despair in Sophia's eyes, a sign of someone who had been abused beyond imagination and still feared taking up space. Luce was going to do everything in her power to destroy those who had caused such damage to be done in the first place. 

Silence reigned over the room for a long time after that, but Luce didn't give a damn. All that she cared about what was making plans for what would be coming next. She and the other members of the group were going to do everything in their power to make sure that this ended well. The situation looked bleak in that instant, but they were going to try and change fate. Nothing was going to be able to stop them when they truly put their attention to the matter at hand. They had already fought in two wars within the span of nine months, and they were still willing to do what was necessary to save their friend. It was what they were there for, and not even the gods would have been able to hold them back. 

~~~~~

"We're leaving."

Lianna looked up from her book when she heard Cryon's voice, and her eyebrows shot up. She was in the main area with the rest of the mercenaries, and Cryon had his sword in his hands. Everyone else seemed to be just as surprised as Lianna was, though none of them vocalized it. 

"This is about the archbishop, isn't it?" Sinin finally inquired, his eyes narrowing. Lianna knew the answer before Cryon could even respond, and she suspected that everyone else was in much the same position. What else would it be? Leora had been bothering them constantly, and it was practically routine for at least one of them to go to the door every half hour during the day to tell the person who had come to talk to them to leave already. If they just ignored it, the issue would only get worse, and Lianna was personally getting tired of it all. She wished that there was more she could do to make it stop than simply roll her eyes in the direction of the door, but there wasn't a solution. 

Cryon seemed to feel otherwise. "Yes," he replied, crossing his arms as he slid his sword into its home inside its sheath at his hip. "We're going to take the Songbird and get moving. I've had enough of Leora bothering us. I'm thinking that we can travel the dimension taking on missions until Leora leaves us alone. I've had enough of her, and I know that all of you guys have as well. There's only so much that we can put up with before we get upset, and she's hit that line It's her own damn fault for all of her pestering."

"I know the real reason that you're doing this," Rie muttered, looking up to Cryon with an intense gaze. "The school year on Millennia is over, and that means that all of the students are coming home. Luce will be back here, and that means that Leora is going to get what she wants. Even if we turn her down at every turn, she's going to be able to see that Luce is back here."

"Maybe it's a little bit of both," Cryon sighed with a shake of his head. "For now, let's just get ready for what's next: we're going to travel until this isn't a problem anymore. I'm getting tired of all this, and I know that you are too. This isn't something that we deserve... First destination is going to be Millennia. I want to tell Luce about this in person. I've been trying so hard to keep her away from the Church of Moonlight, but it seems that wasn't enough."

"Not like we expected the little one to grow up to become a war hero or anything," Lewith commented, shrugging their shoulders loosely. "That's probably how the archbishop figured it out. It seems like everyone is talking about her these days. Luce, I mean. 'Miraculous fighter who helps out in two wars and holds the power of Starlight'... What happened on Igni really did boost her popularity for better or worse. Information probably started spreading around that point."

Lianna looked down at her book for one more moment before she shut it and got to her feet. "We've always looked out for one another here, and it wouldn't be right of us to just abandon Luce when she's in a position like this," she announced despite knowing that everyone else felt the same way. "We should go and find her like the commander suggested. Let's get her and bring her with us as we roam from planet to planet. It's a better plan than just leaving her unattended."

"The only reason that she's been coming here so far is because she knows that I don't like her," Cryon snorted. "Besides, she has to be aware that Luce will be back here soon enough. She's kidding herself if she thinks that she can get through all six of the head teachers of the schools on Millennia to talk to Luce. They're all looking after her because she's related to me and Dawn. If she comes here... Well, that's very convenient for Leora, isn't it?" 

Lianna sighed and shook her head. "If we can't stop the archbishop outright from continuing to talk to us about all of this, then we can at least get away before it gets out of control. Arguably, it's already far out of our influence, but... This is the best solution that we have right now," she pointed out. 

"Tomorrow morning, we're leaving to see Luce on Millennia. We're going to pick her up and just start drifting. It'll be easier than settling down somewhere else. Leora will find us no matter what we do," Cryon announced. "Anyone who wishes to stay here is able to, but I doubt that you'll be given a moment of peace with how frustrating Leora can be. If she wants something, she's going to get her hands on it. I'm not going to let her succeed this time, but... What I'm trying to say is that if you stay here, you'll probably become the new target of her fascination for better or worse."

"I'm in," O'Rourke told Cryon. "I'll get to packing as soon as possible. I can prepare the ship as well. Lewith, what do you say to helping me ensure the Songbird is ready for departure? We don't have much time to dawdle."

Lewith nodded at his words before trailing after the tall hero, and the two were gone soon afterwards. Cryon watched them leave before shifting his attention downwards to where Rie and Reye were sitting together. The twins were impressively shorter than Cryon, and the height difference only seemed more notable as they were swallowed by his shadow. "What do you two say? Do you want to come with us?" Cryon asked. 

"Of course!" Reye exclaimed. "We can't just stay here and wait for the archbishop to come after us again. I'm really starting to get tired of the way that she constantly pesters us. She acts like she's entitled to everything that we know. It's just... Starlight above, she's annoying!"

"If Starlight was still alive, they would hate her," Rie commented crossly, though nobody could blame them in the slightest for the shady remark. "Come on. We've got to make sure that we're ready. We don't know how long we could be gone for." Reye nodded as she trailed after her sister and left the room behind. 

Lianna waited for the two girls to leave earshot before she looked up at Cryon. Sinin cleared his throat and began to walk towards the door. "I'll ensure that all of our important documents are cleared away. If they notice we aren't here, the workers of the Church of Starlight could attempt to break in, and we don't want them to find a way to track us down," he declared. Cryon nodded to him, and Sinin left a moment later. 

Once it was just Lianna and Cryon left, the latter let out a sigh and sat down on the couch, pressing his face into one hand. He shook his head, finally allowing the mask to slip free of his face. Cryon was intent on keeping up a facade of strength around the other mercenaries, but Lianna had come to be the exception over the past few months. After the truth about their heritage was revealed, the two of them had begun to bond, though there was still a lot they had yet to learn about one another. Discovering that they were siblings had been a strange experience, and it had only become more complicated when Lianna's purpose in the mercenary group was revealed. Their dynamic was complex, but Lianna had still come to be Cryon's right-hand within the mercenary company, trusting her above all else. 

"I don't know how we can even get away from her," Cryon confessed. Lianna could tell by the stress in his eyes that Cryon had gotten a headache from the events of the past few weeks. Ever since Leora had started sending members of the Church of Starlight after them, Cryon had been stressed and snappish. He never took it out on the mercenaries, but it was still easy to see that he was being pulled in a thousand different directions thanks to Leora's actions. 

"What happened with her?" Lianna asked as she sat down next to him. She would have to start packing soon since they didn't have much time before they were leaving. They would have to depart early in the morning before Leora sent any of her underlings to visit them once again. IT would be easy for their ship to be tracked if they were seen during departure, after all. 

Cryon sighed to himself once again. "She... She hasn't ever liked me," he admitted. "Ever since Dawn and I grew close, Leora didn't approve of me. This was back when we were still students, mind you. She didn't approve of Dawn giving Starlight Blessings to any of us. The members of the Starlight Camaraderie, I mean. Her possessiveness over Dawn... It was creepy. That's the short way of putting it. Leora has always been one of the reasons that Dawn left. She didn't want to stay in the public eye as long as it meant associating with Leora."

Lianna nodded her understanding. Cryon's lack of usage of a title where Leora was concerned made a striking amount of concern when it was framed that way. "I see..." she murmured, giving Cryon the prompt to continue. 

"She isn't a person that you want to associate with," Cryon warned Lianna. "Nobody should get too close to her. I've heard that she tries to contact people with Starlight Blessings in hopes that it will lead back to Dawn. She's only ever used Dawn to try and increase her own power and ambition on Amity and within the church. Dawn and I... When we left, we weren't exactly trying to hide from the Starlight Camaraderie. They had other things to do with their lives, and we didn't want to disturb that. Leora would have gone after them if she thought that they knew about what we had done to leave."

"She sounds ruthless," Lianna said softly, though that didn't even seem to cover the half of it. 

"She is," Cryon agreed without a second of hesitation. "Leora was beyond angry when she learned that Dawn had left me behind. She and I found one another briefly. To be more accurate, she tracked me down with all the anger of a thousand suns, and then she practically forced me to tell her about the truth. At the time, she managed to catch me when Luce wasn't present. A neighbor was watching over her from the town we were living in at the time. She didn't know that Luce existed until after everything happened on Igni. Now, she's pissed off about it, and she's going to do anything to get somebody with that much strength on her side. Luce might not know how to use her magic fully yet, but that doesn't matter to Leora. She just wants to have somebody related to Dawn on her side. I guess it's part of her twisted complex involving Dawn."

"In other words, we can't allow Luce to associate with her," Lianna concluded. She had heard more than enough, and while she doubted that Leora was someone they could get away with fighting against, that wasn't going to stop her from resisting with everything she had. Leora was far too important within the hierarchy of Amity to be completely eliminated without issues, and the truth would be revealed without hesitation as soon as the government got involved. Nobody would be able to escape their guilt on the matter, not even the mercenaries, meaning that she would unfortunately have to stay alive for the time being. 

"Exactly," Cryon said. "I don't know how I'm going to explain all of this to Luce, but I'm going to have to figure it out. Hell, I don't even know where we're going to be headed from here, but I guess that's a problem for us to work out another time. We need to get away right now, and that's got to be our priority."

"In that case, I suppose that we have our work cut out for us," Lianna muttered. She rose to her feet and grabbed her book off the table. "The Songbird... Do you think that it will be able to hold all of us? We can use it for brief travel and such, but I somehow doubt that it could contain us for the long term."

Cryon perked up at Lianna's mention of the spaceship belonging to the mercenary companies. "What are you trying to imply? We have to take the Songbird," Cryon told her, getting almost defensive about it. 

Lianna shook her head. "I'm simply saying that a powerful enough spell could expand the space there. If I worked together with Sinin and the twins, we could make the ship large enough for us to travel with easily. O'Rourke and Lewith can make sure that it still works well after the expansion, and that should make things more comfortable for all of us throughout our journey," Lianna explained. 

Cryon hesitated for a moment before nodding. "Alright. I trust you," he said carefully. "I should go and make sure that everything is running smoothly for our departure. We're going to have to get to sleep early tonight so that we can leave before the sun comes up tomorrow. I'll see you in the morning, Lianna."

Cryon left the room soon afterwards, and Lianna frowned as he departed. She could see that there was more to his moment of brief upset than met the eye. She looked down at the cover of her book for a moment, running her fingers along the surface. It wasn't going to be easy for them to get away from the Church of Starlight, but they didn't have much of a choice in the matter. The archbishop of the church was beyond relentless, and there wasn't another option for them. 

Lianna could have honestly cared less about Leora on a personal level. In her eyes, what mattered most was the fact that Leora was getting so close to the other mercenaries. Lianna had come to think of them as her family, and she wished nothing short of hell on those who dared to get close enough to harm those she cared for. If Leora was going to use the religion of Amity and Starlight against them, then so be it. Lianna would simply return with an attack of her own using the power that she had been given by Dawn. Leora was playing a dangerous game, and Lianna only prayed that it didn't cause complete fallout when push came to shove. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What have we learned today kids??? Leora is the worst
> 
> -Digital


End file.
